LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 

Class 


THE   STORY   OF 
BRITISH    DIPLOMACY 

Its  Makers  and  Movements 


BY 

T.   H.   S.   ESCOTT 

AUTHOR    OF 
SOCIETY    IN    THE    COUNTRY    HOUSE,"     "  KING    EDWARD   AND    HIS    COURT,"   ETC. 


UN;V 


PHILADELPHIA : 

GEORGE    W.    JACOBS    &    CO., 
PUBLISHERS 


(All  Rights  Reserved) 


CONTENTS 

CHAP.  PAGE 

I.  INTRODUCTORY  i 

II.  Two  CENTURIES  OF  ENGLISH  DIPLOMACY  (1485-1697)  12 

HI.  TREATIES  AND  THEIR   MAKERS,  FROM   RYSWICK  TO 

UTRECHT  38 

IV.  EARLY  HANOVERIAN  DIPLOMACY  59 

V.  CHATHAM  :   HIS  WORK  AND  ITS  RESULTS  90 

VI.  THE  FIRST  TEN  YEARS  OF  THE  FOREIGN  OFFICE  -  114 

VII.  THE  FOREIGN  OFFICE  IN  WAR  TIME  (1792-1806)-  143 

VIII.  HIGH  POLITICS  AND  HIGH  FINANCE  177 

IX.  FROM  TILSIT  TO  CHAUMONT   -  206 

X.  THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  NON-INTERVENTION  237 

XI.  THE  CANNING  TRADITION  264 

XII.  REACTION  TO  INTERVENTION  -  294 

XIII.  THE  PASSING  OF  PALMERSTON  332 

XIV.  OFFICIAL  AND  UNOFFICIAL  DIPLOMATISTS  361 
XV.  NEW  VIEWS  AND  VENTURES   -  384 

INDEX     -  409 


Vll 


208132 


— +* 


PREFACE 

A  HISTORY  of  English  diplomacy,  that  attempted 
the  revelation  of  Foreign  Office  secrets,  might 
resolve  itself  into  a  series  of  imaginative  conjectures, 
sure  to  prove  often  most  unhistoric  and  generally 
unedifying.  The  less  ambitious  object  of  this  work 
is  systematically  to  disentangle  the  thread  of  inter- 
national narrative  from  the  general  events  of  contem- 
porary history.  Those  events  have  been  entirely 
avoided,  except  when  they  formed  a  part  of  the 
particular  subject  in  hand.  When  the  notion  first 
suggested  itself  to  me  some  years  ago,  I  was  in  the 
habit,  as  a  writer  for  the  public  press,  of  seeing  several 
of  those  high  in  authority  at  the  Foreign  Office  or 
in  the  diplomatic  service.  Among  these  were  Lords 
Granville,  Kimberley  and  Salisbury.  The  first  of 
these  was  kind  enough  to  recall  for  my  instruction  an 
oral  account  of  the  course  of  our  diplomacy  he  had 
himself  received,  when  first  going  to  the  Foreign  Office 
in  1851,  from  his  predecessor,  Lord  Palmerston.  That 
included  a  summary  of  our  foreign  relations,  from  a 
date  earlier  than  that  of  the  Foreign  Office  itself— 
indeed  from  the  year  1714.  The  Secretaryship  for 
the  Southern  Department  had  then  been  taken  by 


IX 


Preface 

Stanhope,  whom  Palmerston  seems  to  have  regarded 
as  the  first  official  who  made  foreign  policy  his  dis- 
tinctive province.  And  here  in  passing  I  may  observe 
I  am  aware  of  some  reasons  given  by  Mr  Pike*  for 
seeing  in  the  Northern  department  rather  than  the 
\  Southern  the  specific  germs  of  the  Foreign  Office. 
As  a  fact,  I  have  in  the  introductory  chapter  of  the 
present  work  opened  my  brief  retrospect  with  a  period 
considerably  before  that  of  Stanhope.  For  the  rest  it 
has  been  my  first  object,  avoiding  all  excursions  into 
general  history,  as  well  as  the  more  universally  familiar 
portions  of  the  diplomatic  narrative,  to  confine  myself 
to  the  foreign  transactions  of  the  English  Government, 
to  the  individuals  chiefly  associated  with  these,  and, 
for  choice,  to  dwell  in  detail  rather  upon  those  that 
naturally  and  properly  have  occupied  less  space  in  the 
general  histories  of  the  time. 

My  special  obligations  to  other  works  as  well  as  to 
individuals  have  been  mentioned  generally  at  what 
seemed  the  right  place  in  the  course  of  this  narrative. 
Over  and  above  these,  independently  too  of  the 
Palmerstonian  reminiscences  by  which  Lord  Granville 
allowed  me  to  profit,  I  am  indebted  to  Lord  Granville 
himself  for  many  hints  upon  those  periods  of  which  he 
had  personal  experience  and  with  which  I  have  had  to 
do.  Lord  Kimberley  also  gave  me  much  information 
bearing  on  the  epoch  of  his  Copenhagen  Commission 

*  The  Ptiblic  Records  and  the  Constitution,  a  lecture  delivered  at 
All  Souls  College,  Oxford,  by  Luke  Owen  Pike,  M.A.  (Frowde,  Oxford 
University  Press,  1907.) 


Preface 

in  1863.  As  regards  the  diplomatic  story  of  the  early 
nineteenth  century,  I  was  shown  very  many  years  ago 
by  Mr  Spencer  Montagu,  who  afterwards  became  the 
last  Lord  Rokeby,  some  most  interesting  family  papers 
rich  in  fresh  impressions  of  Metternich  and  of  Metter- 
nich's  time  generally.  I  am  conscious  of  having 
derived  equal  or  greater  profit  from  frequent  conversa- 
tions on  contemporary  or  former  events  and  personages 
with  that  kindest  of  friends,  Lord  Currie,  who  abounded 
in  first-hand  knowledge  handed  down  to  him  by  his 
father,  Raikes  Currie,  of  diplomatic  transactions  during 
the  Napoleonic  era.  Such  acquaintance  with  the 
interior  of  the  Department  as  I  may  have  acquired 
began  when  Lord  Currie  first  became  Permanent 
Under-Secretary.  Nor  have  my  obligations  been  less 
to  those  connected  with  the  Foreign  Office  since  Lord 
Currie's  time,  especially  to  the  present  Lord  Dufferin 
and  to  Lord  Fitzmaurice.  Among  all  living  experts 
on  international  or  diplomatic  subjects,  my  greatest 
indebtedness  is  to  my  kind  friend  of  now  very  many 
years'  standing,  Sir  Charles  Dilke,  and  to  my  Oxford 
contemporary,  now  of  our  French  Embassy,  Sir  Henry 
Austin  Lee.  Had  any  of  those  now  mentioned  with- 
held from  me  their  good  offices  my  task  could  not 
have  been  completed.  As  regards  books,  Dr  Franck 
Bright's  and  Sir  Spencer  Walpole's  histories  have 
provided  me  with  innumerable  data  which  I  could  not 
otherwise  have  obtained  ;  while  Dr  Bright  gave  me 
invaluable  assistance  in  preparing  the  whole  ground- 
work and  plan  of  this  volume,  as  well  as  in  advising 


XI 


Preface 

me  about  some  of  its  details,  and  Lord  Reay  assisted 
me  with  invaluable  details  concerning  Pitt's  Dutch 
diplomacy  in  the  Napoleonic  era.  Apropos  of  Pitt's 
financial  operations  at  this  period,  Sir  Charles  Rivers 
Wilson's  good  offices,  and  the  mastery  of  the  subject 
possessed  by  Mr  A.  T.  King  of  the  National  Debt 
Office,  have  enabled  me  to  illustrate  the  connection 
between  high  politics  and  high  finance,  with  personal 
information  of  great  interest  and  value  now  printed  for 
the  first  time. 

T.  H.  S.  ESCOTT. 

WEST  BRIGHTON, 
April  1908. 


xii 


THE    STORY    OF    BRITISH 
DIPLOMACY 


CHAPTER   I 

INTRODUCTORY 

The  object  of  diplomacy  —  Its  genesis  in  Classic  Greece  — 
Machiavelli :  his  influence  upon  European  diplomacy  before 
and  after  his  death — Italy  succeeded  by  Russia  as  a  school  of 
statecraft — English  foreign  policy — The  various  causes  of  its 
lack  of  unity  —  Early  examples  of  Britain's  relations  with 
Continental  Powers — Inclination  to  Anglo-Spanish  rather  than 
to  Anglo-French  alliances — Anglo-Spanish  relations  changed  by 
the  divorce  of  Henry  VIII.,  the  Reformation  and  the  naval 
enterprises  of  Elizabeth's  reign. 

THE  elementary  object  of  diplomacy  in  all 
countries  and  ages  may  be  roughly  described 
as  the  maintenance  of  international  relations  on  terms 
of  mutual  courtesy,  forbearance  and  self-control,  such 
as  regulate  the  intercourse  of  individuals  in  private 
life,  the  reduction  to  a  minimum  of  causes  of  inter- 
national friction,  the  actual  avoidance  or  the  indefinite 
postponement  of  recourse  to  war  for  the  settlement  of 
disputes  between  independent  states.  Should  pacific 
negotiations  have  failed  and  hostilities  become  un- 
avoidable, diplomacy,  defeated  for  the  moment,  does 
not  sink  into  an  attitude  of  mere  passive,  idle 
spectatorship ;  preserving  presence  of  mind  and  cool- 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

ness  of  head  even  amid  the  clash  of  arms,  it  awaits 
the  opportunity  of  the  peacemaker.  It  follows,  from 
whatever  distance,  the  varying  fortunes  of  the  field. 
Trained  agents  at  the  courts  or  capitals  of  the  warring 
states  keep  it  accurately  informed  concerning  the 
resources  of  the  belligerent  Powers,  the  movement  of 
their  high  finance,  the  conflict  of  interest  or  opinion 
among  allies,  concerning  fluctuations  of  popular  feeling, 
penetrates,  if  not  the  tactics  of  generals,  the  designs 
of  the  sovereigns  or  statesmen  who  direct  them.  It 
watches  and  seizes  opportunities  for  mediatorial  action 
with  a  view  to  the  conclusion  of  a  settled  peace.  The 
different  states  of  classical  Greece  gradually  created 
for  themselves  a  species  of  diplomatic  machinery  in 
that  Amphictyonic  Council,  existing  for  the  purpose  of 
settling  disputes  between  the  various  Hellenic  com- 
munities by  peaceful  compromise  instead  of  by  in- 
ternecine war.  To  the  influence  of  that  body  may  be 
attributed  the  strong  public  feeling  against  resorting 
to  the  sword  in  the  earlier  stages  of  a  quarrel,  and, 
above  all,  against  omitting  the  due  formalities  when 
the  rupture  came,  against,  in  a  word,  an  appeal  to  the 
god  of  battles  without  due  proclamation  by  heralds. 

The  beginnings,  however,  of  European  diplomacy 
are  not  discernible  till  the  Roman  Empire  was  replaced 
by  the  European  state  system.  The  essence  of  the 
Renaissance  statecraft  distilled  itself  into  diplomacy ; 
that  art  had  Machiavelli  for  its  first  Italian  teacher ; 
Spain,  two  centuries  later,  produced  Alberoni ;  between 
these  came  the  Swedish  Oxenstern,  remembered  for 
a  single  aphorism,  to-day  more  familiar  than  any 
Machiavellian  maxim,  notwithstanding  that  the  great 
Florentine  may  be  said  to  have  had  all  Europe  for  his 


Introductory 

pupil.  No  political  instructor  of  any  epoch  projected 
his  ideas  further  or  more  powerfully  into  future  gener- 
ations than  was  done  by  the  man  whose  very  name  has 
become  a  synonym  for  heartless  cunning  and  un- 
scrupulous craft.  If  the  fact  of  having  influenced  the 
thought  and  the  politics  of  his  time  makes  a  man  great, 
that  epithet  unquestionably  belongs  to  Machiavelli. 
As  a  diplomatist  the  combination  of  insight  into  human 
nature  and  dexterity  in  dealing  with  it  commanded 
admiration  and  success.  As  a  writer  he  condensed 
into  pithy  and  pungent  apothegms  those  generalisations 
from  his  own  experience  and  conversance  with  affairs 
which,  as  will  presently  be  seen,  if  they  did  not 
actually  mould,  at  least  reflected  themselves  in  the 
administrative  or  executive  ideas  of  his  own  as  well  as 
of  later  generations. 

The  earliest  professor  of  the  diplomatic  art, 
Machiavelli  is  also  the  first  to  describe  the  stages  and 
tactics  by  which  this  art  can  alone  reasonably  count 
upon  success.  For  to  him  diplomacy  means  nothing 
less  than  the  management  of  human  nature  by  appeals 
to  its  own  master-motives  or  passions.  These,  from 
his  point  of  view,  are  constant  qualities.  States  rise 
and  fall.  Fortunes,  whether  acquired  by  communities 
or  individuals,  are  consolidated  or  melt  away.  Human 
nature  never  changes ;  its  manifestations,  like  its 
expedients,  may  vary  in  their  degrees  of  complexity ; 
its  fundamentals  are  always  the  same.  As  humanity  is 
in  its  essence  unchangeable,  so  must  be  the  most 
effective  methods  of  dealing  with  it  in  an  individual  or 
in  a  community.  Much  truth  is  there  from  this  point 
of  view  in  the  old  Italian  proverb,  "  So  good  a  man  as 
to  be  good  for  nothing,"  or,  to  quote  the  nineteenth  - 

3 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

century  English  variant  of  the  same  idea,  "  A  good 
man  in  the  worse  sense  of  the  words." 

Fifty  years  after  his  death,  Europe  began  to  see, 
personified  as  it  were,  in  Machiavelli's  ghost,  the  evil 
genius  of  the  age.  Possessed  by  that  sinister  spirit, 
the  pious  and  devout  Calvin  became  a  party  to  the 
burning  for  heresy  of  Servetus  at  Geneva  (1553). 
Twenty  years  later  the  same  malignant  influence 
prompted  Catherine  de  Medici  to  the  massacre  of  St 
Bartholomew's  Day.  Another  hundred  years  pass ; 
the  master-strokes  of  policy  which  signalised  the  reign 
of  Louis  XIV.,  what  are  they  save  modernised  mani- 
festations of  Machiavellian  statecraft  ?  But  why  con- 
fine within  such  limits  the  operation  of  a  force  which, 
notwithstanding  its  Florentine  label,  amounts  in  reality 
to  the  sum  of  human  nature's  concealed  but  ever-living, 
dissembled  yet  always  in  the  last  resort  decisive,  in- 
stincts and  aims.  Nor  for  that  matter  was  the  mock- 
ing fiend  of  Machiavellianism,  assuming  perhaps  other 
shapes,  less  busy  under  the  Fronde  than  under  the 
League.  Or  again,  to  descend  to  our  own  days,  the 
tactics  of  the  twin  creators  of  existing  Italy,  Cavour 
and  Napoleon  III.,  what  were  they  but  an  adaptation 
to  later  needs  of  weapons,  meet  for  patriotism  and 
piety,  chosen  from  the  Machiavellian  armoury  ?  Yet 
once  more :  the  idees  Napoleoniennes,  the  Bismarckian 
beatitudes  (beatipossidentes),  surely  these,  quite  as  much 
as  the  policy  and  maxims  of  Frederick  the  Great,  are  the 
latter-day  fruitage  of  the  sixteenth-century  "  Prince." 

To  pass  to  the  Machiavellian  spirit  in  con- 
nection with  the  diplomatic  developments  of  our 
own  country.  In  England  Machiavelli's  writings 
excited  much  interest  very  soon  after  they  began 

4 


Introductory 

to  be  known   anywhere.     They   were   recommended 
to    Cardinal    Pole,  as   practical    treatises  on  the  arts 
of    government,    by    Thomas    Cromwell,    who    had 
visited  Florence    at  the  time  when  they  were  being 
written.     The  eminently  practical  tone  of  their  leading 
principles   were    akin   to    those  advocated  by    Bacon 
for  conducting  physical  research.     As   might  be   ex- 
pected, therefore,   Machiavelli  receives  a  panegyric  in 
the   Advancement  of  Learning.     As  in   his  masterly 
Romanes    Lecture  (1897)  Mr   John    Morley   pointed 
out,  in  both  Bacon's  Essays  and    History  of  Henry 
VII.    the    student    of    Machiavelli    stands    revealed. 
James   Harrington,    converted   from  republicanism  to 
courtiership,  the  attendant  of  Charles  I.  on  the  scaffold, 
shows  familiarity  with  Machiavelli  in  his  Oceana.    After 
the   Restoration  the  Leviathan  and  Human   Nature 
of  Thomas  Hobbes  testify  to  the  literary  vitality  of 
Machiavelli.     No   one   can    miss    the  family  likeness 
of  the  Tudor  sovereigns'  policy  to  the  Machiavellian 
model.     Bacon,  however,    himself  describes   Machia- 
velli as  only  putting  men's  actual  practice  into  formulas. 
Embodying    the    materialistic    wisdom    of    his    age, 
Machiavelli    taught    diplomatists,    like   statesmen,    to 
regard  their  calling  not  as  an  abstract  science  but  an 
empirical  art.     To  vary  Bacon's  phrase,  he  sublimated 
the  shrewdest  and  hardest  wisdom  of  his  time   into 
precepts   which    stamp   themselves   on    the   memory, 
though  they  jar  the  conscience  and  revolt  the  heart. 
By  the  seventeenth  century  the  public  as  well  as 
professional     statesmen    had    become     familiar    with 
Machiavelli's   ideas  and   maxims.     The   statecraft   of 
the   Stuarts   or   of  Cromwell  was  not  more  Machia- 
vellian than  that  of  Henry  VIII.  and  Elizabeth  at  a 

5 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

time  when  the  political  ethics  of  The  Prince  were 
known  only  to  a  comparatively  limited  number  of 
students  and  specialists.  The  commanding  prominence 
secured  by  the  writer  of  this  work  is  largely  to  be 
explained  by  the  natural  tendency  to  attach  the  label 
of  a  well-sounding  name  to  any  body  of  doctrines  or 
practice.  So  was  it  with  Epicurus,  Arminius  or 
Calvin.  In  the  same  way  certain  natural  and  in 
themselves  commonplace  methods  in  domestic  or 
international  politics  seem  to  gain  defmiteness  and 
consistency  by  association  with  Machiavelli.  Among 
English  writers  on  international  topics  familiar 
aphorisms  connect  themselves  with  Sir  William 
Temple  or  the  men  with  whom  he  lived.  These,  how- 
ever, will  be  most  fittingly,  if  at  all,  considered  at  a 
later  stage  in  this  work.  On  this  the  threshold  of  our 
inquiry  only  one  other  remark  need  be  made. 

The  place  of  Italy  as  a  school  of  statecraft  and  diplo- 
macy during  the  Middle  Ages  was,  in  modern  times,  to 
a  great  extent  filled  by  Russia.*  Here  the  intellectual 
activities  of  the  higher  classes  were  not  distracted,  as 
has  been  the  Anglo-Saxon  experience,  from  state 
duties  by  agriculture,  manufactures,  or  even  by  judicial 
and  civil  employments.  The  two  former  were  left  to 
the  lower  classes.  Those  who  constituted  the  flower 
of  the  nation,  such  as  did  not  enter  the  army,  were 
trained  from  early  youth  for  diplomacy. 

The  diplomacy  whose  movements  are  now  to  be 
traced  is  that  in  which  England  has  taken  an  active 
part  and  which  have  had  for  their  headquarters  the 

*  Diplomatic  relations  between  England  and  Russia  seem  to  have 
begun  in  the  February  of  1557,  when  the  Czar  Ivan  Vasilivich  sent  an 
ambassador  to  the  Court  of  Philip  and  Mary. 

6 


Introductory 

English  Foreign  Office,  in  one  or  other  of  its  various 
abodes. 

The  traditions  of  our  international  administration 
and  the  principles  underlying  the  policy  of  its  directors 
are  for  the  most  part  not  less  untrustworthy  than  are 
other  stereotyped  commonplaces  of  the  platform,  the 
dinner-table  or  the  press.  On  no  subject  indeed  is 
generalisation  likely  to  prove  more  misleading  than  on 
that  of  English  foreign  policy.  The  insular  position 
of  this  realm  has  affected  alike  the  character  of  its 
population  and  the  temper  of  its  rulers.  How  dis- 
turbed has  been  the  course  of  our  history  may  be 
judged  from  the  fact  that,  among  the  thirty-six  sove- 
reigns since  the  Conquest,  except  in  the  case  of 
Edward  III.  (great-great-grandson  of  John),  there  is 
no  instance  of  the  crown  descending  in  lineal  and 
unbroken  succession  through  four  generations. 
Repeated  changes  of  dynasty  have  combined  with  an 
unbroken  development  of  mercantile  power  to  create 
new  political  forces  in  the  nation.  The  growth  of  the 
English  navy  and  its  constantly  varying  requirements 
have  produced  further  solutions  of  continuity  in  our 
diplomatic  record.  Nowhere  else  has  opportunism 
to  such  an  extent  moulded  statesmanship.  Add  to 
these  interrupting  influences  two  centuries  of  party- 
government,  the  periodical  transformation  scenes  re- 
sulting from  them,  and  the  growth  of  the  popular  belief 
in  the  international  value  of  matrimonial  alliances  ; 
here  there  is  more  than  enough  to  account  for  lack 
of  unity  in  the  external  policy  of  the  national  rulers. 

It  is,  however,  possible  to  trace  the  varying 
tendencies  which  have  been  operative  from  time  to 
time  and  have  reflected  themselves  in  the  relations 

7 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

between  England  and  other  nations  during  shorter 
or  longer  periods.  England's  dealings  with  her 
European  neighbours  only  began  to  be  methodised 
under  the  first  Tudor  sovereign  in  the  sixteenth 
century.  Long  before  that,  however,  and  almost  from 
prehistoric  times,  the  isolated  points  of  contact  between 
these  islands  and  Continental  states  had  been  numerous 
as  well  as,  in  some  instances,  so  significant  or  sugges- 
tive as  to  prepare  a  rude  and  insular  race  for  the 
amenities  of  peaceful  intercourse  with  countries  beyond 
the  four  seas  ;  they  formed  the  preparatory  school  of 
diplomacy  itself.  The  Western  barbarians,  described 
by  the  Roman  poet  as  remote  outcasts  from  civilisation, 
thus  began  to  acquire  an  international  status  when, 
after  the  invasion  of  their  land  by  the  Roman  legions, 
a  British  princess  became  the  mother  of  the  future 
emperor  who  made  Christianity  the  State  religion. 
Before  the  Welsh  or  Irish  missionaries  and  the  coming 
of  Augustine,  Ethelbert's  marriage  to  Bertha,  the 
daughter  of  the  Prankish  king,  had  planted  the  Cross 
in  Kent.  The  Latin  priest,  Birinus,  and  others  of  his 
order  who  may  have  followed  Augustine  were 
additional  links  in  the  chain  connecting  primitive 
Britain  with  the  capital  of  the  world.  These  ties 
were  from  time  to  time  drawn  closer  by  the  many 
early  British  sovereigns  who,  on  the  warning  of  con- 
science or  sickness,  retired  to  Italy  that  they  might 
breathe  their  last  on  soil  which  the  Apostles  had  trod. 
Met  on  his  journey  thither  by  the  King  of  France, 
Charles  the  Bald,  Ethel wulf  passed  a  year  in  Italy  ; 
the  purpose  of  his  visit  was  the  presentation  to  the 
Vicar  of  Christ  of  his  son  the  future  King  Alfred  who 
already  had  the  pope  for  his  godfather.  A  Saxon 


Introductory 

college  had  for  some  time  existed  on  the  Tiber ;  from 
Ethel wulfs  Roman  visit  dates  not  only  the  completion 
of  its  buildings  and  endowments,  but,  according  to 
tradition,  the  institution  of  Peter's  Pence.  During 
that  residence  abroad  the  English  king  found  a 
second  wife  in  Judith,  the  daughter  of  Charles  the 
Bald.  Hence  his  prolonged  absence  from  his  realm 
and  the  consequent  unpopularity  which  faced  him  on 
his  return. 

The  next  Anglo-Continental  marriage  in  high 
places  was  two  hundred  years  later  when,  in  1035,  the 
Princess  Gunhild,  King  Canute's  daughter,  became 
the  bride  of  the  Emperor  Henry  III.  Of  all  the 
Anglo-Continental  episodes  in  this  century,  none 
associates  itself  with  events  of  more  importance  than 
the  rivalry  between  the  Saxon  party  under  Godwin 
and  his  sons  and  the  French  faction,  largely  stimulated 
by  the  foreign  bishops,  favourites  of  Edward  the 
Confessor.  Hence  followed  the  peaceful  visit  of 
William  of  Normandy  and  the  alleged  promise  whose 
violation  led  to  the  Norman  Conquest. 

After  the  events  of  1066  it  became  an  absolute 
certainty  that  an  anti- French  policy  would  prevail.  A 
lately  arrived  invader,  formerly  the  chief  vassal  and 
now  the  rival  of  the  French  king,  could  not  be  other 
than  the  enemy  of  his  suzerain.  Subsequent  events 
combined  to  emphasise  the  estrangement  between  the 
rulers  of  the  two  countries.  Germany,  Spain  and 
Guienne  entered  actively  into  the  situation.  A 
national  era  of  commercial  competition  opened.  The 
bonds  of  amity  uniting  Spain  and  Guienne  on  the  one 
hand  with  England  on  the  other  deepened  and 
broadened  the  separation  of  England  from  France. 

9 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

During  the  twelfth  century  the  Anglo- Spanish  entente 
became  increasingly  cordial.  The  marriage  of  the 
second  Henry's  daughter,  Eleanor,  with  Alphonso  of 
Castile  set  on  foot  an  international  friendship  that 
even  outlived  the  Reformation.  The  next  incident 
tending  in  the  same  direction  was  the  marriage  of 
Edward  I.  to  a  Spanish  princess  of  the  same  name, 
Eleanor  of  Castile.  To  that  feat  of  matrimonial 
diplomacy  the  English  monarchy  owed  the  establish- 
ment of  its  pecuniary  fortunes,  and  English  farming 
the  most  profitable  impetus  as  yet  communicated  to 
it.  The  earliest  among  our  royal  women  of  busi- 
ness, Queen  Eleanor,  brought  her  husband  a  more 
valuable  dower  than  her  Southern -European  territories 
in  the  capacity  which,  by  reconstructing  the  wool 
trade  and  organising  the  Northumbrian  collieries,  not 
only  increased  the  national  wealth,  but  doubled  the 
royal  income.  Other  international  connections  of  the 
domestic  kind  had  been  made  with  different  foreign 
countries  about  a  hundred  years  earlier.  Of  the 
children  born  to  Henry  II.,  one  son  at  least  married  a 
French  princess  ;  the  eldest  daughter  became  wife  of 
Henry  the  Lion,  of  Saxony ;  another  wedded  the 
Norman  King  of  Sicily,  then  the  chief  naval  power  in 
the  Mediterranean.  Before,  therefore,  the  twelfth 
century  had  closed,  the  peaceful  agencies  of  her 
diplomatists  had  won  for  England  a  place  of  European 
authority  which  could  never  have  been  gained  by  the 
military  triumphs  of  her  kings,  notwithstanding  that 
French  addition  to  their  royal  title  that  remained  in 
use  till  George  III.  In  1371,  Edward  III/s  sons, 
John  of  Gaunt  and  the  Earl  of  Cambridge,  found 
wives  in  two  Spanish  princesses;  respectively  Constance 


10 


Introductory 

and  Isabel,  both  daughters  of  Pedro  the  Cruel.  The 
bias  towards  Spain,  thus  instituted,  was  strengthened 
by  Henry  V.'s  strong  attachment  to  the  European 
unities.  To  him  indeed  the  Church  and  the  Empire 
were  the  two  guarantees  for  the  maintenance  of  the 
national  and  even  social  system  of  Europe.  The 
foreign  policy  of  the  Tudors  will  receive  separate 
notice  presently.  It  is  enough  here  to  say  that  the 
predecessors  of  Henry  VIII.  had  all  of  them,  in 
different  degrees  or  manners,  contributed  to  the 
building  up  of  the  Anglo-Spanish  alliance.  The 
master-stroke  of  Henry  VII.'s  diplomacy  was  his 
son's  union  with  Katharine  of  Aragon.  The  relations 
between  London  and  Madrid  were  of  course  changed 
by  the  Reformation.  English  enthusiasm  for  Spain 
may  have  burned  hot  during  the  few  years  of 
Mary's  reign  ;  under  Elizabeth  it  gradually  cooled.  It 
died  out  amid  the  glories  of  Drake  and  the  Armada. 
These  last  words  indicate  the  continuance  of  influences 
as  personal  and  as  far-reaching  upon  English  policy  as 
was  that  exercised  by  the  seventh  Henry  himself. 
Mercantile  enterprise  and  naval  strength,  the  creations 
of  a  few  great  men,  supported  and  directed  the 
management  of  our  external  affairs  in  the  Tudor 
period. 

How  the  Stuarts  inherited  the  Elizabethan  tradi- 
tion, how,  in  spite  of  his  oddities,  James  I.  was  true  to 
his  Protestantism,  and  how  amid  many  variations  and 
vacillations  the  diplomacy  of  that  king  made  France 
upon  the  whole  the  bulwark  of  the  new  religion,  all 
this  and  much  else  will  be  related  in  its  proper  place. 


ii 


CHAPTER   II 

TWO   CENTURIES   OF    ENGLISH   DIPLOMACY 
(1485-1697) 

Henry  VII.  his  own  Foreign  Minister — The  Great  Intercourse — 
Diplomatic  royal  marriages — The  evolution  of  the  Foreign- 
Secretary — The  personal  element  in  English  diplomacy  under 
the  Tudors — The  policy  of  Henry  VIII.  and  Wolsey — England 
as  arbitrator  between  France  and  Spain — Diplomacy  under 
Edward  VI. — Scotland  as  the  instrument  of  France — Mary's 
Spanish  alliance — Religion  as  the  cloak  for  international 
intrigue — The  influence  of  popular  feeling — The  policy  of 
Elizabeth  and  Lord  Burleigh — The  Queen's  Spanish  inclina- 
tions counteracted  by  her  religious  opinions,  continued  by 
James  I. — The  Royal  matrimonial  arrangements  of  the  younger 
Cecil — The  Juliers  and  Cleves  dispute — The  Thirty  Years'  War 
— The  Protestant  feelings  of  the  English  people  opposed  to  the 
Spanish  sympathies  of  the  King — The  Peace  of  Westphalia — 
Cromwell  revives  Elizabeth's  diplomacy — The  emancipation  of 
Switzerland — The  Anglo-French  alliance — Clarendon  as  a 
Foreign  Minister — The  Relations  of  Charles  II.  with  Louis 
XIV.— The  first  Triple  Alliance  (1668)— Sir  William  Temple— 
Danby — The  position  of  William  III. — The  Grand  Alliance 
(1689) — William's  diplomacy  up  to  the  Treaty  of  Ryswick. 

RESUMING  in  some  detail  the  international 
narrative,  we  reach  a  distinct  and  most  im- 
portant landmark  in  England's  connection  with 
foreign  states  under  the  earliest  of  the  Tudor  kings. 
The  reign  of  Henry  VII.  witnessed  the  establishment 
of  quietness  and  security  at  home  and  the  preservation 
of  peace  abroad.  It  therefore  provided  opportunities 

singularly  favourable  for  systematising  English  diplo- 

12 


Two  Centuries  of  English  Diplomacy 

macy.  Upon  that,  as  upon  other  departments  of 
Imperial  rule,  public  opinion  generated  by  national 
well-being  and  the  progressive  growth  of  a  middle- 
class  could  now  make  itself  felt.  Henry's  Chancellors 
or  Secretaries  were  serviceable  instruments  for  raising 
money ;  there  seems  no  reason  for  supposing  that 
Morton,  Dean,  Warham  or  any  other  of  this 
sovereign's  ecclesiastical  statesmen  originated,  as  in 
the  next  reign  Wolsey  was  to  do,  a  foreign  policy  of 
their  own.  The  king,  it  may  be  assumed,  was  his 
own  Foreign  Minister.  In  that  capacity  he  negotiated 
(1496)  the  Great  Intercourse — to  cite  by  its  best-known 
name  the  treaty  with  Burgundy,  then  an  independent 
state,  under  its  own  duke — for  promoting  trade  between 
England  and  the  Netherlands  and  for  putting  down 
piracy  ;  it  also  supplied  a  convenient  means  for  suppress- 
ing Burgundian  plots  in  the  Yorkist  interest.  Among 
other  diplomatic  results  contrived  by  the  founder  of 
the  Tudor  dynasty  were  the  marriage  of  his  daughter 
Margaret  to  James  IV.  of  Scotland,  the  overtures  to 
Ferdinand  of  Spain,  whose  daughter  he  desired  as  a 
wife  for  his  eldest  son,  and  eventually  that  marriage 
between  Arthur,  Prince  of  Wales,  and  Katharine  of 
Aragon,  destined  so  profoundly  to  influence  the 
history  of  two  hereditarily  allied  peoples.  After  this 
the  death  of  his  wife,  Elizabeth  of  York,  caused 
Henry,  as  a  step  to  a  second  marriage,  to  open  com- 
munications with  the  dowager  Queen  of  Naples,  with 
Margaret  of  Savoy  and,  after  the  Duke  of  Burgundy's 
death,  with  the  widowed  duchess.  Before  these 
matrimonial  overtures  could  provide  him  with  a 
second  consort,  Henry  died ;  he  had  lived,  however, 
long  enough  to  see  his  policy  yield  some  result  in 

13 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

the  Treaty  of  E staples.  This  transaction  secured  him 
,£149,000  and  the  expulsion  from  the  French  Court 
of  Perkin  Warbeck,  whom  the  Great  Intercourse  was 
to  shut  out  from  Burgundy  also.  Whoever  may 
have  been  his  agents  in  these  negotiations,  English 
diplomacy  in  the  hands  of  the  king  who  may  be 
regarded  as  its  founder  proved  successful,  both  from  a 
political  and  matrimonial  point  of  view. 

After  the  eighteenth  century  is  reached  the  chief 
officials  employed  in  the  management  of  English  deal- 
ings with  foreign  countries,  or  the  buildings  where 
their  work  was  transacted,  will  suggest  practicable 
and  convenient  heads  under  which  to  group  different 
portions  of  the  subjects  treated  in  this  volume.  State 
officials  charged  with  most  or  all  the  duties  of  a 
minister  of  the  exterior  existed  in  the  fifteenth  century 
under  Henry  VI.  Not  till  more  than  a  hundred  years 
later  was  the  business  of  the  king's  principal  Secretary 
divided  between  two  coequals  in  rank  and  occupation. 
In  addition  to  any  purely  domestic  functions,  these 
ministers  were  responsible  for  the  superintendence 
and  regulation  of  England's  external  interests. 
Under  Henry  VIII.  it  may  be  even  said  that  the 
machinery  of  the  English  Foreign  Office  began  to 
exist  in  detail.  In  1539  the  single  Secretary  gave 
place  to  two  officials,  known  respectively  as  Secretary 
for  the  Northern  and  Southern  Departments.  The 
former  sphere  of  duties  included  Denmark,  Germany, 
the  Low  Countries,  Poland,  Russia  and  Sweden ; 
the  latter  co-extensive  with  France,  Switzerland, 
Italy,  Portugal,  Spain,  and  Turkey.  From  the  point 
of  view  taken  in  these  pages  it  will  thus  be  seen  that 
the  head  of  the  Southern  Department  was  beyond 

14 


Two  Centuries  of  English  Diplomacy 

all  comparison  the  more  important  of  these  two  func- 
tionaries. Complications  between  England  and  the 
Northern  Powers  could  be  but  exceptional  and  occa- 
sional only ;  as  a  fact,  throughout  the  Tudor  period 
Germany  meant  the  Empire,  whose  elective  head  was 
for  the  most  part  identified  with  Spain.  Hence  it 
follows  that  whoever  for  the  time  presided  over  the 
Southern  Department  was  practically  the  Foreign 
Minister  of  the  sovereign.  None  of  Henry's  foreign 
agents  can  have  approached,  in  point  of  genius  or 
during  his  ascendancy  in  authority,  Cardinal  Wolsey  ; 
but  Wolsey 's  fall  took  place  in  1529,  ten  years,  that  is, 
before  the  official  division  into  the  two  departments. 
Although,  therefore,  the  conduct  of  Anglo-French, 
Anglo- Spanish  and  Anglo- Roman  relations  remained 
almost  uninterruptedly  in  his  hands,  Wolsey  could  not 
have  been  the  titular  occupant  of  the  position  which,  more 
nearly  than  any  other,  foreshadowed  that  of  Foreign 
Secretary,  first  created  in  1 782.  Never  was  the  personal 
element  in  English  diplomacy  marked  more  strongly 
than  during  the  reign  of  the  second  Tudor  king. 

Without  any  attempt  to  thread  the  labyrinth 
of  international  movements  in  this  epoch,  some 
of  its  more  characteristic  incidents  or  defined  land- 
marks may  be  briefly  indicated.  Of  the  trans- 
actions in  which  from  1509  to  1547  the  English 
sovereign  engaged  with  foreign  states,  the  general 
tendency  was  to  commit  this  country  to  new  inter- 
national responsibilities,  to  encourage  it  to  a  course 
of  European  intervention,  and  to  make  the  voice 
of  these  islands  felt  in  the  politics  of  the  Continent. 
To  the  League  of  Cambrai,  formed  between 
France  and  Spain  against  Venice,  England  had 

IS 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

not  been  a  party.  The  confederation  that  first 
formally  drew  her  into  the  foreign  vortex  was  the 
Holy  League,  at  once  the  successor  and  corrective  of 
the  earlier  arrangement,  and  set  on  foot  by  Pope 
Julius  II.  for  preventing  the  undue  preponderance  of 
France.  Another  object  of  this  combination  was  to 
preserve  the  Italian  States  to  the  papacy.  In  this 
place,  however,  the  significance  of  England's  member- 
ship of  the  compact  consists  in  the  declaration  which 
it  implied  that  the  European  balance  of  power  was  a 
distinct  English  interest. 

Thus,  too,  was  established  the  diplomatic  tradition 
which  during  many  years  afterwards  made  the  English 
bias  in  Continental  affairs  on  the  whole  in  favour  of 
the  Empire,  then  including  Spain  and  Austria,  and 
against  France.  Thus  a  ministry  of  foreign  affairs  no 
sooner  acquired  a  potential  existence  under  Henry 
VIII.,  than  two  distinct  principles  of  English  inter- 
national procedure  began  to  shape  themselves :  the 
first  was  that  of  intervention  in  Continental  affairs  ; 
the  second  that  of  an  anti- French  European  alliance. 

The  central  ideas  guiding  Henry  VIII.'s  ministers 
were  those  which,  notwithstanding  periodical  de- 
partures from  the  traditional  line,  animated  their 
successors  throughout  the  following  centuries,  as  well 
as  the  Palmerstonian  period,  and  the  democratic  break 
with  European  intervention  as  a  tradition  of  the 
English  Foreign  Office.  Henry's  religious  or  matri- 
monial projects  and  Wolsey's  personal  ambitions 
caused  a  perpetual  fluctuation  between  the  French 
and  the  Imperial  alliance. 

Notwithstanding,  however,  all  the  shiftings,  vicissi- 
tudes and  transformations  of  England's  oversea 

16 


Two  Centuries  of  English  Diplomacy 

connections  under  the  Tudors,  that  period  ended  as 
it  began  with  Spanish  and  Imperial  friendship. 
Other  things  being  equal,  it  was  understood  that  the 
preference  of  English  diplomacy  would  be  for  an  anti- 
French  and  pro-Austrian  policy. 

A  very  brief  historical  summary  will  suffice  to 
illustrate  the  absence  from  Henry's  policy  of  any  deep 
or  abiding  principle.  In  1519  had  died  the  Emperor 
Maximilian,  chief  among  the  earlier  of  Henry's 
Continental  allies ;  Maximilian's  son  the  Archduke 
Philip,  by  his  marriage  with  Katharine  of  Aragon's 
sister,  had  left  a  son,  Charles  V.  of  Spain,  who 
claimed  the  emperorship  as  an  hereditary  right. 
Henry  VIII.  was  also  a  candidate  for  the  Imperial 
throne,  but  subsequently  withdrew  in  favour  of  the 
Spanish  monarch,  whom  he  supported  against  Francis 
I.  of  France.  French  diplomacy,  seeing  in  the 
English  king  the  arbiter  of  Europe,  now  engaged 
in  those  negotiations  which  culminated  (1520)  in  the 
Field  of  the  Cloth  of  Gold.  Eventually,  however, 
under  the  guidance  of  Wolsey,  the  arch-diplomatist 
of  the  period,  the  Anglo- Spanish  alliance  stood  firm, 
if  for  no  other  reason  than  that  the  great  minister 
thought  it  would  help  him  to  the  papal  throne. 

No  attempt  need  here  be  made  to  follow  the 
international  intricacies  of  the  period ;  one  feature  in 
them  is  invested,  by  events  which  happened  long 
afterwards,  with  too  much  interest  to  be  ignored. 
For  the  first  time  during  these  sixteenth-century 
European  complications,  arbitration  as  a  diplomatic 
agency  appeared  in  1521.  In  that  year  Wolsey  at 
Calais  mediated  on  the  Franco- Spanish  War  in  favour 

of  England's  helping  Spain.     The  personal  element 
B  17 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

already  mentioned  now  asserted  itself  more  definitely 
than  before.  Twice  disappointed  in  his  attempts  to 
occupy  the  Chair  of  Peter,  and  therefore  disgusted  with 
Spain,  Wolsey  negotiated  with  France  an  offensive 
alliance  against  the  Peninsula.  A  specific  justification 
of  this  step  was  forthcoming  in  the  plea  that  Spanish 
and  Imperialist  troops  had  lately  sacked  Rome,  had 
imprisoned  Pope  Clement  VII.  and  thus  outraged  the 
religious  conscience  of  Europe.  Plausible  as  this 
new  diplomatic  departure  seemed  at  the  moment,  the 
divorce  proceedings  prevented  its  being  a  practical 
success.  Francis  was  not  in  a  position  to  forget  that, 
as  French  king,  he  was  the  eldest  son  of  the  Roman 
Church  first  and  could  only  be  the  ally  of  the  English 
monarch  afterwards.  In  1532  he  formally  approved 
the  pope's  refusal  to  sanction  the  putting  away  of 
Katharine  of  Aragon,  and  showed  his  loyalty  to 
the  Vatican  by  condemning  on  grounds  of  religion 
that  step  of  the  English  king  which  Charles  V.  of 
Spain,  for  considerations  of  national  pride  if  for 
no  other,  was  bound  from  the  first  uncompromisingly 
to  oppose.  The  whole  international  episode  therefore 
terminated  in  no  fresh  alliance,  but  in  the  isolation  of 
Henry. 

Under  Edward  VI.  (1547-1553)  foreign  affairs  re- 
mained in  the  hands  of  Protector  Somerset,  the  most 
commanding  figure  among  those  Lords  of  the  Council 
from  time  to  time  consulted  by  the  Tudor  sovereigns 
in  the  direction  of  their  diplomacy.  Throughout  the 
reign  now  reached,  whether  there  was  peace  or  war, 
the  same  kind  of  international  questions  that  had 
exercised  the  father  confronted  the  son.  In  addition  to 
these  there  were  the  futile  negotiations  with  Charles  V, 

18 


Two  Centuries  of  English  Diplomacy 

against  France;  they  were  followed,  in  1551,  by  the 
proposals  for  marrying  the  young  English  king  to  a 
French  princess.  All  this  time  the  official  and  the 
popular  wish  for  a  spirited  policy  was  frustrated  by  the 
state  of  affairs  north  of  the  Tweed  ;  there  Henry  II.  of 
France  had  begun  the  long  series  of  intrigues,  for 
whose  conduct  Scotland  continued  to  offer  facilities  till 
the  union  of  the  two  countries  under  Anne.  It  had  at 
one  time  seemed  as  if  the  Tudor  Princess  Mary,  in- 
stead of  finding  a  husband  in  his  son,  Philip  of  Spain, 
might  have  married  the  father,  Charles  V.  Hence  the 
communications,  that,  begun  so  far  back  as  1518,  had 
resulted  in  the  visit  of  the  emperor  to  Canterbury. 

Mary's  accession  in  1553  gave  the  signal  for  the 
renewal  of  politico-religious  intrigues  with  the  English 
Romanisers  by  Renard  and  Noailles,  respectively  the 
representatives  in  London  of  the  Austro- Spanish  power 
and  of  France.  In  none  of  these  could  the  plea 
or  pretence  of  religion  conceal  the  consistent  reality 
of  political  aims.  The  diplomacy  which  preceded 
Mary  Tudor's  union  with  Philip  of  Spain  remained 
the  object  of  the  country's  uneasy  observation  from 
the  day  that  marriage  negotiations  were  suspected  to 
be  actually  on  foot.  The  air  indeed  had  been  full  of 
matrimonial  possibilities.  The  object  of  Cardinal 
Pole's  sojourn  in  England  was  to  promote  the  re- 
union of  Rome  and  Canterbury.  Gossip  whispered 
significantly,  if  absurdly,  about  the  favour  his  hand- 
some person  had  found  in  the  eyes  of  the  English 
queen.  The  pope,  it  was  said,  so  much  desired  to 
see  Mary  Tudor,  his  cardinal's  wife,  that  he  would 
have  absolved  the  bridegroom  from  his  priestly 
vows  of  celibacy.  The  fatal  obstacles  were  the 

19 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

fanatical  scruples  of  Mary  herself,  perhaps  of  Pole  also. 
If,  however,  the  cardinal's  conscience  would  not  let  him 
marry  the  queen,  his  influence  was  certainly  used  to 
prevent  her  finding  any  other  husband.  It  was  the 
jealousy  of  the  ambitious  cleric,  not  of  the  dis- 
appointed lover,  which  spoke. 

Popular  feeling  and  national  interests  had  now  begun 
to  influence  the  arrangements  of  sovereigns  and  states- 
men. The  middle  classes  anticipated  advantage  to 
their  trade  with  the  Netherlands  from  their  sovereign's 
taking  a  Spanish  husband.  That  appeal  to  material 
interest  did  much  to  overcome  the  instinctive  aversion 
of  the  Protestant  mind  to  a  Roman  Catholic  consort. 
By  independence  of  her  professional  diplomatists 
Mary  thought  she  would  best  consult  the  material 
welfare  of  her  subjects.  At  this  time,  however, 
France  swarmed  with  English  refugees.  Hence  the 
risk  of  international  complications.  At  last,  after  the 
diplomatists  had  done  their  work,  the  price  paid  for 
the  friendly  understanding  with  Spain  was  the  war 
with  France,  which  lost  Calais  to  England  and 
brought  on  the  fatal  failure  of  the  English  queen's 
health. 

During  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  the  task  set  itself  by 
English  diplomacy  was  the  now  familiar  and  periodically 
recurrent  playing  off  of  France  against  Spain.  All 
international  affairs  were  now  in  the  hands  of  the 
queen's  greatest  minister,  Cecil,  afterwards  Lord 
Burleigh.  The  object  of  Burleigh's  diplomacy  never 
varied  ;  it  was  always  so  to  divide  the  Continental 
Powers  among  themselves  that  England  could  stand 
alone.  On  details  from  time  to  time  the  queen  and 

her  minister  may  have  differed.     On  central  principles 

20 


Two  Centuries  of  English  Diplomacy 

of  policy  there  was  between  them  absolute  agree- 
ment. More  than  once,  indeed,  the  personal  leanings 
of  Elizabeth  toward  Spain  had  moved  Burleigh's 
apprehensions,  but  for  a  moment  only.  The  loyalty 
felt  by  Henry  VIII. 's  daughter  to  her  father's 
religious  settlement  more  than  neutralised  any 
personal  predisposition  of  her  own  for  a  Spanish 
policy.  It  therefore  became  Burleigh's  paramount 
object  to  strengthen,  and  if  necessary  embitter,  the 
queen's  antagonism  to  Rome.  That,  if  properly 
managed,  would  constitute  his  best  means  for  pre- 
venting either  her  marriage  with  the  Spanish  king  or 
her  inclination  to  a  diplomacy  tinged  too  deeply  with 
Spanish  sympathies.  Either  of  these  things,  if  not 
counteracted,  must  have  fatally  interfered  with  the 
minister's  statecraft.  England,  he  intended,  should 
hold  the  scales  containing  respectively  Spain  and 
France.  It  was  Burleigh's  duty  so  nicely  to 
adjust  the  balance  that  the  international  equi- 
poise should  be  perfect  and  permanent.  In  this 
way  only  would  the  subordination  of  England 
either  to  France  or  to  Spain  be  averted.  Rather 
indeed,  as  was  his  dominating  ambition,  would  the 
superiority  of  England  to  both  be  secured.  Eliza- 
beth's partialities  to  Spain  did  not,  as  everyone  knew, 
imply  any  fondness  for  its  national  religion.  Spain, 
however,  manifestly  reciprocated  the  friendly  disposition 
of  the  English  queen.  No  state  really  loyal  to  the 
Vicar  of  Christ  could  consent  to  be  on  friendly  terms 
with  a  sovereign  who  lay  under  the  ban  of  papal 
excommunication.  So  argued  the  most  fervent 
and  uncompromising  of  the  papacy's  English  friends. 
Consequently  they  showed  their  consistency  by  looking 


21 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

for  future  religious  leadership  in  the  direction,  not  of 
Spain  at  all,  but  of  France.  Had  not  Mary  Stuart  by 
her  marriage  with  the  Dauphin  become  potentially  a 
French  princess  ?  Might  she  not  also  even  yet  be  able 
to  assert  her  claims  to  the  English  crown  and  dethrone 
the  detested  daughter  of  Anne  Boleyn  ?  The  ideal 
therefore  always  present  to  the  strongest  and  most 
representative  of  English  papists  was  the  transforma- 
tion of  England  into  a  Roman  Catholic  Power  first, 
and  afterwards  its  union  with  France  in  a  social  and 
political  as  well  as  religious  alliance.  To  English 
Catholics,  therefore,  Spain  seemed  no  longer  a  desir- 
able or  profitable  ally,  but  rather  a  rival  to  be  defeated 
with  French  help. 

Purely  secular  causes  throughout  the  last  half  of  the 
sixteenth  century  contributed  to  loosening  the  heredi- 
tary connection  of  Spain  and  England.  With  the 
great  maritime  adventures  of  the  era,  there  had  set  in 
the  mutual  jealousy  between  these  nations  as  com- 
petitors in  colonial  enterprise.  The  first  James  indeed, 
on  at  least  two  occasions,  showed  his  readiness  to  sub- 
ordinate to  Spanish  interest  or  sentiment  his  policy 
abroad  and  his  action  at  home.  There  can  be  no 
reasonable  doubt  that  Sir  Walter  Raleigh's  execution 
in  1618  was  chiefly  due  to  the  intrigues  of  Spain, 
whose  national  pride  had  been  wounded  and  whose 
colonial  supremacy  was  threatened  by  the  exploits  of 
that  English  navigator.  The  second  occasion  came 
later  in  the  reign  (1622).  During  the  seventeenth 
century  Spanish  diplomatists  had  succeeded  to  the 
European  position  that  had  formerly  belonged  to 
Machiavelli  as  founder  of  the  art,  and  his  Italian 
disciples.  The  greatest  master  of  the  Spanish  school, 


22 


Two   Centuries  of  English  Diplomacy 

Gondomar,  was  the  ambassador  sent  from  Madrid  to 
Whitehall.  Through  him  the  Government  of  the 
Peninsula  proposed  to  James  the  betrothal  of  his 
son  Charles  to  the  Infanta.  The  marriage  now 
proposed  formed  a  complete  contrast  to  the  two 
royal  matches  designed  in  1612  by  Cecil,  the  second 
son  of  Queen  Elizabeth's  Burleigh.  Nor  could  any 
two  instances  of  matrimonial  diplomacy  more  faith- 
fully illustrate  the  diametrically  opposite  characters  of 
the  men  by  whom  they  were  respectively  originated  or 
negotiated.  In  arranging  the  alliance  of  hearts  or  of 
nations  Cecil  knew  only  one  motive — to  strengthen  his 
nation's  position  as  arbiter  of  European  Protestantism. 
In  1612  he  made  his  greatest  stroke  in  this  direction 
by  securing  for  the  Princess  Elizabeth  a  Protestant 
husband  in  Frederick,  the  Elector  Palatine  ;  that  union 
was  to  affect  the  whole  future  of  his  country  and  to 
guarantee  for  it  not  only  the  Protestant  succession  but 
its  present  reigning  house.  Cecil's  further  attempt  to 
provide  the  king's  elder  son,  Prince  Henry,  with  a 
French  princess  as  wife  was  frustrated  by  the  potential 
bridegroom's  premature  death.  Protestant  zeal,  how- 
ever, had  originally  animated  the  scheme,  one  condition 
of  which  had  been  that  the  French  princess  should  be 
from  childhood  accessible  to  Protestant  influences.  On 
the  other  hand  Buckingham's  readiness  to  promote  the 
betrothal  of  Prince  Charles  to  the  Infanta,  by  accom- 
panying the  prince  to  Madrid,  was  marked  by  a  sense 
of  irresponsibility  and  was  prompted  by  no  other  aim 
than  to  prove  himself  the  pliant  tool  of  the  court.  How 
the  incognito  journey  of  Charles  and  Buckingham  to 
Spain  failed  in  its  real  object,  but  en  route  at  Paris 
made  the  future  Charles  I.  acquainted  with  his  queen, 

23 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

Henrietta  Maria,  forms  a  familiar  episode  in  general 
history. 

At  first  the  choice  of  the  daughter  of  Henry  of 
Navarre  may  have  pleased  English  taste.  That  feel- 
ing disappeared  so  soon  as  Englishmen  realised  the 
foothold  in  the  realm  given  by  details  of  the  marriage 
treaty  to  papal  projects.  Yet,  in  spite  of  all  this,  the 
general  drift  of  English  diplomacy  at  the  beginning 
of  the  Stuart  epoch  was  decisively  Protestant.  One 
instance  of  this,  not  yet  mentioned,  is  the  episode  of 
the  Juliers  and  Cleves  duchies.  That  affair,  occurring 
in  1 609,  calls  for  a  few  explanatory  words.  The  Duke 
of  Brandenburg  and  the  Duke  of  Neuburg,  both 
Protestants,  claimed  the  succession  to  supremacy  in  the 
two  duchies.  By  an  act  of  arbitrary  intervention  the 
Emperor  Rudolph  gave  the  duchies  to  his  relative,  a 
papist,  the  Archduke  Leopold.  On  this  the  two  ducal 
and  Protestant  claimants  united  in  common  cause 
against  the  Imperial  nominee.  English  diplomacy  was 
then  entirely  in  Cecil's  hands.  In  other  words,  its 
Protestantism  and  patriotism  were  beyond  suspicion. 
After  a  short  time  spent  in  negotiations,  England,  the 
German  Protestant  Union  and  France  prepared  to 
support  by  arms  the  two  dukes  whom  the  emperor  had 
displaced.  This  piece  of  military  policy  succeeded  and 
the  two  dukes  regained  their  thrones.  No  manifesta- 
tion of  the  anti-papal  spirit  now  dominating  the  foreign 
policy  of  England  could  have  been  more  emphatic  or 
opportune.  It  was  followed  by,  and  may  have  con- 
stituted a  preparation  for,  the  distribution  of  inter- 
national sympathies  that  marks  the  English  attitude 
during  the  Thirty  Years'  War.  With  that  struggle 

our  concern  here  is,  of  course,  but  secondary.     Nor  in 

24 


Two  Centuries  of  English  Diplomacy 

reference  to  it  need  more  be  done  than  to  indicate  the 
different  confusing  and  conflicting  currents  to  be  seen 
in  the  diplomatic  stream  as  it  then  flowed.  Each  of 
the  factions  composing  the  political  parties  of  the 
period  had  its  private  agents  abroad,  often  without 
disguise  counter-working  the  accredited  ambassador. 
The  king's  instructions  to  his  representatives  were  to 
put  all  the  pressure  which  peace  permitted  upon  the 
Catholic  Archduke  of  Austria,  Ferdinand,  who  was 
also  emperor,  to  arrange  terms  with  the  Protestants. 
Above  all,  he  was  to  secure  the  speedy  restoration  of  the 
Palatinate  to  its  ruler,  the  Elector  Frederick,  his  own 
son-in-law.  The  necessary  promises  were  repeatedly 
given  by  Philip  IV.  of  Spain,  the  relative,  the  co- 
religionist and  ally  of  the  Most  Catholic  Emperor. 
The  Spanish  arms  were  actively  employed  on  the 
papal  side.  In  England  the  Parliamentary  and 
popular  objection  to  the  royal  policy  was  not  that  the 
king  was  heading  for  war,  but  that  the  hostilities,  to 
which  his  subjects  were  in  danger  of  being  committed, 
would  be  on  behalf  of  Continental  Romanism  instead 
of  the  Protestant  cause  personified  by  Frederick.  So 
far  as  there  then  existed  any  means  for  making  popular 
influence  felt  upon  foreign  policy  it  would  have  been 
in  the  direction  of  an  English  alliance  with  Con- 
tinental Protestantism  against  Spain  and  with  the 
specific  object  of  securing  for  the  future  Charles  I.  some 
bride  who  was  not  a  Roman  Catholic.  Buckingham 
did  not  pass  away  before  1628.  Throughout  his 
closing  years,  ever  indeed  since  the  failure  of  his 
Spanish  mission,  he  used  all  his  influence,  secret 
or  open,  to  complicate  the  international  situation  by 
placing  obstacles  in  the  way  of  Anglo-Spanish  policy. 

25 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

The  notorious  bias  of  the  first  Stuart  king  towards 
absolutism  in  politics  and  against  Presbyterianism  in 
religion  originated  the  misgiving  of  Parliament  lest  it 
should  find  itself  committed  to  support  the  Catholic 
emperor  against  the  Protestant  Elector.  The  national 
feeling  was  not  for  peace  at  any  price,  but  for  war  if 
necessary  on  behalf  of  the  Protestant  husband  of  the 
English  princess.  Foreign  policy,  it  will  thus  be  seen, 
in  a  scarcely  less  degree  than  conflicting  views  of  the 
royal  prerogative  at  home,  was  involved  in  the  quarrel 
between  Parliament  and  king.  At  least,  it  was  urged 
by  those  who  insisted  that  the  opinions  of  subjects 
should  act  as  a  check  on  the  foreign  diplomacy  of 
the  court ;  if  English  armies  cannot  be  used  to  prevent 
the  work  of  the  Reformation  being  undone  abroad,  let 
the  penal  laws  of  the  Tudors  be  enforced  against 
Romanists  living  within  the  four  seas.  But  the 
sovereign  who  would  send  Raleigh  to  the  scaffold 
rather  than  offend  the  susceptibilities  of  Philip  III. 
and  his  people,  demurred  to  measures  whose  first  effect 
must  have  been  to  exasperate  both  the  Spanish  people 
and  the  Spanish  king.  What,  however,  it  chiefly 
concerns  us  to  recognise  here  is  this.  Our  foreign 
policy  may  have  been  less  spirited  than  the  more 
pugnacious  Protestantism  of  the  period  wished.  It 
embodied,  as  upon  the  whole  it  has  from  that  time 
continued  to  do,  not  so  much  the  decision  of  courts 
and  cabinets  as  the  deliberate  purpose  of  the  nation's 
sobriety  and  common-sense.  Nor  probably  has  sub- 
jection to  popular  control  really  interfered  so  much  with 
the  continuity  of  English  diplomacy  as  it  is  sometimes 
supposed  to  have  done.  The  great  principle  established 
by  the  Peace  of  Westphalia  in  1648,  the  balance  of 

26 


Two  Centuries  of  English  Diplomacy 

power,  had  been  first  formulated  by  Henry  VIII. 
That  equilibrium,  through  the  reign  of  William  III. 
and  indeed  till  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
formed  the  regulating  motive  of  English  statesmanship 
abroad.  In  other  ways  the  Peace  of  Westphalia  opened 
a  new  era  in  the  international  relationships  of  the 
European  system.  It  secured  freedom  of  worship  for 
the  Protestants  of  the  Empire.  It  created  Switzerland. 
For  the  first  time  elsewhere  it  practically  recognised 
the  claims  of  the  smaller  Continental  states  to  inde- 
pendent existence.  The  Empire  thus  received  the 
earliest  in  a  series  of  blows,  the  last  of  which  was  to 
be  given  with  fatal  decisiveness  by  Napoleon  in  1806. 
Advancing  in  chronological  order,  we  pause  for  a 
moment  at  the  international  aspects  of  the  short 
republican  interval  dividing  the  two  periods  of  the 
Stuart  monarchy.  Retrospectively  regarded,  the 
foreign  policy  of  the  Protectorate  was  an  application  of 
the  Elizabethan  expedient  of  playing  off  France  against 
Spain  in  the  Protestant  interest.  In  carrying  out  his 
ideas  Cromwell  found  himself  confronted  by  the  anti- 
pathy and  antagonism  of  the  courts  and  capitals  of 
monarchical  Europe.  Baffling  alike  Stuart  intrigues 
and  foreign  designs  against  English  republicanism, 
he  made  insults  and  even  outrages  the  instruments  of 
diplomatic  success.  One  of  his  ambassadors  was 
attacked  and  killed  at  The  Hague  ;  another  met  a  like 
fate  at  Madrid.  This  did  not  deter  him  from  a 
practical  anticipation  of  those  international  principles 
afterwards  to  be  asserted  by  William  III.  The 
position  of  England  at  the  head  of  European  Protest- 
antism was  confirmed.  Without  military  intervention, 

by  the  steady  employment  of  diplomatic  pressure  alone, 

27 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

the  persecution  and  the  Romanising  by  brute  force  of 
the  Vaudois  were  stopped.  Mazarin,  Louis  XIV.'s 
minister,  desired  a  treaty  with  England.  Cromwell 
refused  his  signature  till  the  French  king  should  have 
prevailed  upon  the  Duke  of  Burgundy  to  guarantee 
the  Protestant  Swiss  in  their  own  form  of  worship. 
Now,  English  diplomacy  definitely  declared  its  pre- 
ference for  a  French  over  a  Spanish  alliance.  The 
determining  motive  was,  of  course,  the  gratification  of 
the  Protector's  co-religionists.  It  is  worth  noticing 
that  to  Cromwell's  diplomacy  continental  Europe 
owed  the  unrestricted  circulation  of  the  Scriptures. 
Free  use  of  their  Bibles  in  all  parts  of  the  Spanish 
realm  and  freedom  of  international  trade  had  been 
Cromwell's  demands  of  Spain. 

Turning  now  to  the  friendship  of  France,  Oliver 
engaged  in  the  negotiations  which  preceded  the  war. 
One  result  of  the  struggle  with  Spain  following  the 
Anglo-French  alliance  was  the  acquisition  of  Jamaica,  as 
well  as  the  introduction  of  English  Bibles,  together  with 
English  commerce,  into  West  Indian  waters.  Another 
territorial  gain  to  England  resulted  from  Cromwell's 
policy  of  Anglo-French  friendship.  The  despatch 
(1657)  of  the  English  contingent  to  help  Louis  XIV. 
secured  the  fall  of  Dunkirk,  then  besieged  by  the 
French  king.  The  next  year  the  town  surrendered, 
nominally  to  Spain.  Through  the  Protector's  astute 
negotiations  it  become  at  once  an  English  possession. 

After  the  Restoration,  English  diplomacy  still  ran 
in  the  channel  into  which  it  had  been  directed  during 
the  Commonwealth.  The  minister  of  Charles  II., 
Clarendon,  joined  the  Northern  Protestants  against 

Austria  and  Spain.     That  this  policy  should  have  been 

28 


Two  Centuries  of  English  Diplomacy 

carried  out,  or  even  have  suggested  itself  as  possible, 
was  due  entirely  to  those  clauses,  already  referred  to,  in 
the  Peace  of  Westphalia,  which  transformed  the  smaller 
nationalities  of  central  Europe  from  Imperial  vassals 
into  independent  states.  Clarendon's  failure  as  a 
Foreign  Minister  had  for  its  chief  and  continuing  cause 
his  inability  to  realise  the  entirely  new  position  on  the 
Continent  created  by  the  equilibrium  that  the  West- 
phalia peace  established  and  by  the  fresh  communities 
carved  out  of  the  Empire.  The  cultivation  of  French 
goodwill  also  explains  the  great  achievement  of  Clar- 
endon's diplomacy,  the  king's  marriage  with  Katharine 
of  Braganza  ;  for  Portugal  had  then  thrown  off  the 
Spanish  yoke  and  had  become  the  trans- Pyrenean 
outwork  of  France.  If  the  motive  of  the  union  had 
been  to  gratify  France  as  against  Spain,  its  conse- 
quence was  by  the  bride's  dowry  of  Bombay  to  give  to 
her  adopted  country  the  first  commercial  and  military 
centre  acquired  by  England  in  Western  India.  After 
this  the  foreign  policy  of  England  under  Charles  II. 
modelled  itself  on  that  of  Louis  XIV.  In  the  June  of 
1660  that  king  had  effected  a  Franco- Spanish  rap- 
prochement by  marrying  the  Infanta  Maria  Theresa, 
The  obvious  object  of  this  union  was  to  concentrate 
in  French  hands  the  dominion  of  the  Low  Countries, 
and  Franche-Comte',  as  well  as  to  improve  the  French 
frontier  on  the  Rhine.  Henceforward  in  his  impor- 
tunities to  Parliament  for  money  the  systematic  plea 
of  the  second  Charles  was  the  necessity  of  not  being 
inferior  to  the  French  king.  Hence,  too,  in  1668,  the 
first  of  the  international  arrangements  known  as  Triple 
Alliances,  for  uniting  England,  Holland  and  Sweden 

against  French  aggression  in  the  Netherlands.     That 

29 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

was  effected  by  the  king's  accredited  ministers  in 
the  usual  way.  His  other  transactions  were  less 
11  correct";  for,  while  his  statesmen  were  busy  with 
negotiations  their  royal  master  had  approved,  Charles, 
on  his  own  account,  was  himself,  over  their  heads, 
communicating  with  the  French  king.  This  may 
serve  as  one  of  the  earlier  illustrations  of  the  private, 
unofficial  and  irresponsible  diplomacy  of  which  in  its 
due  place  something  hereafter  will  be  said — as,  for 
instance,  when  Fox  and  his  friends,  while  in  Opposition, 
kept  their  own  envoys  at  Paris  or  elsewhere  as  rivals 
to  the  ministers  employed  by  the  Government  of  the 
day  in  negotiations  with  France  or  the  United  States. 

Less  peaceful  in  its  aims  and  more  uncon- 
stitutional in  its  methods  than  that  of  the  mortified 
Whig  leader  in  the  eighteenth  century,  the  private 
diplomacy  of  the  second  Charles  in  1670  eventuated, 
two  years  after  the  Treaty  of  Dover,  in  the  Dutch 
War.  National  feeling,  as  might  have  been  expected, 
was  soon  to  frustrate  the  international  statecraft  of  the 
English  king.  The  situation  in  which  the  royal 
diplomatist  found  himself  rather  resembled  that  pro- 
duced by  the  personal  sympathy  of  his  grandfather, 
James  I.,  with  Roman  Catholic  Spain  when  his 
people  were  bent  on  supporting  his  own  Protestant 
son-in-law,  the  Elector  Frederick,  against  the  emperor. 
The  French  king  might  send  his  agents  to  bribe  the 
Houses  not  to  sit  at  Westminster ;  but  the  responsible 
directors  of  England's  foreign  relations  made  it  known 
to  their  employer  that  the  hour  had  struck  for 
England's  retirement  from  the  struggle  to  which  he 
wished  to  commit  his  country. 

To  the  period  now  reached  belongs  Sir  William 

30 


Two  Centuries  of  English  Diplomacy 

Temple,  the  most  widely  experienced,  accomplished 
and  popularly  trusted  ambassador  of  his  time,  to 
whom,  it  may  be  said  in  passing,  is  often  attributed 
a  phrase  that  was  none  of  his.  The  description  of  an 
ambassador  as  "an  honest  man  sent  abroad  to  lie 
for  the  good  of  the  commonwealth  "  had  passed  into 
currency  before  Temple's  time  ;  its  real  author  was 
Sir  Henry  Wotton,  who,  under  James  I.,  after  twenty 
years  as  English  representative  at  Venice,  as  well  as 
various  missions  to  the  emperor  and  German  princes, 
gave  conclusive  proof  of  his  own  integrity  by  returning 
to  England  a  poor  man.  To  a  place  in  the  same 
category  indeed  as  Wotton  Sir  William  Temple  is 
entitled  by  gifts,  qualities  and  conversance  with  affairs, 
resembling  those  of  the  most  distinguished  predecessor 
in  his  profession.  England,  Holland  and  Sweden  had, 
we  have  seen,  coalesced  against  France :  it  was 
Temple  who  carried  through  the  threefold  compact. 
In  1678  he  was  to  accomplish  another  stroke  of 
policy  whose  ulterior  consequences  were  to  dwarf  into 
comparative  insignificance  his  earlier  achievement. 
This  was  the  betrothal  of  the  Princess  Mary,  eldest 
daughter  of  the  then  Duke  of  York,  afterwards  James 
II.,  to  William  of  Orange.  The  disgust  of  Louis 
XIV.  at  this  match  could  not  have  been  greater 
had  he  actually  foreseen  that  it  would  directly  result 
in  the  mustering  of  those  forces  whose  combination 
was  to  wrest  from  his  monarchy  the  prerogative  of 
European  arbiter.  Charles  II.  had  made  the  experi- 
ment of  being  his  own  Foreign  Minister,  above  and 
independently  either  of  Lords  of  the  Council  or  of 
Parliament.  In  other  words  he  began  a  series  of 
private  deals  with  the  French  king.  So  long  as  he 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

pleased  his  paymaster,  Charles  pocketed  his  money 
with  a  smile  at  having  dished  his  Parliament.  In  1678 
the  Princess  Mary's  betrothal  to  William  of  Orange  so 
exasperated  the  French  king  that,  charging  his  royal 
brother  with  breach  of  faith,  he  stopped  supplies. 
Charles  then  turned  to  his  Parliament  for  a  grant,  as 
he  said,  to  undertake,  if  compelled,  war  against 
France  :  he  also  actively  took  in  hand  the  raising  of 
troops.  The  Houses,  as  a  condition  of  any  money 
supply,  insisted  on  these  troops  being  disbanded,  and 
even  then  did  not  give  enough  to  prevent  the  king 
from  once  more  turning  to  Louis. 

Thus  English  diplomacy  under  Charles  II.  resolved 
itself  into  an  interchange  of  cajoleries,  bribes,  bargains 
and  recriminations  between  the  courts  of  Great  Britain 
and  France.  The  English  negotiator  was  Danby, 
though  he  kept  his  disapproval  in  the  background 
and  from  the  first  knew  that  neither  his  Parliament 
nor  people  would  tolerate  the  mutual  hagglings  of 
Charles  and  Louis.  Not,  therefore,  without  reluctance 
or  even  protest  did  he  convey  his  master's  fresh 
political  proposals  and  pecuniary  demands  to  Versailles. 
More  money  Louis  would  not  give.  The  English 
centre  of  diplomatic  gravity  now  shifted  to  the  official 
residence  of  the  British  ambassador,  Montague,  at 
Paris.  The  engagement  which  Charles  had  volun- 
teered with  Louis  was,  if  he  could  not  openly  become 
his  ally,  at  least  to  abstain  from  helping  Holland  in 
the  Dutch  War  which  France  then  had  on  hand.  In 
Charles,  Louis  saw  only  a  self-indulgent,  indolent,  vacil- 
lating schemer  prepared,  for  a  consideration  in  cash 
down,  to  make  any  promise  that  there  might  be  a  reason- 
able chance  of  evading  afterwards.  I  n  Danby  he  recog- 

32 


Two  Centuries  of  English  Diplomacy 

nised  the  overruling  mind  that  had  caused  Charles  to 
fail  his  royal  brother  of  France  in  so  many  details. 
Louis  therefore  determined  to  use  the  state  secrets  of 
which  he  was  master  for  working  the  English  minister's 
ruin.     The    French    king    had    already   through   his 
agents  in    London   bribed   members   of  the   English 
Parliament.     He  might  therefore  consistently  enough 
have  now  directly  laid  before  the  Houses  at  West- 
minster an  account  of  his  secret  dealings  and  private 
treaties  with  Charles.     He  preferred,  however,  to  follow 
on  this  occasion  the  orthodox  diplomatic  precedent  of 
making    his    first    communications    to    the    English 
ambassador    at    his    court.     Neither    as    diplomatist 
nor  as  politician  does  Danby  seem  to  have  sunk  below 
the  moral   standard   of  his   time.     In   executing   his 
sovereign's  behests  he  only  showed  his  fidelity  to  the 
spirit  which   had   animated    the    Stuart    Restoration. 
Nor,  when  exposure   and   overthrow   came,    did   the 
public  opinion  of  his  day  forget  that  he  was  a  scape- 
goat,   the   prime    offender's    agent,    rather    than   the 
offender   himself.     If  men   used   strong   language   in 
denouncing    Danby,    its    force   only   meant   that   the 
censure,  though  addressed    to  a  vulnerable  minister, 
had   for   its  real   object  an    inviolable  king.     Danby 
was  indeed  a  trimmer  and  a  turncoat.     That  in  his 
day  meant  no  more  than  being  a  versatile  tactician. 
As  were  the  period  and  the  statesmanship,  such  also 
were   the   diplomacy    and    the    diplomatists.     Danby 
had   long   foreseen  the   fall    of  the  Stuarts.     When, 
in  1688,  it  came,  he  was  found  in  the  same  camp  as 
Temple,    whose   personal    friendship    he    had    made 
during   that   diplomatist's   official    residence    at    The 
Hague.     A    moral    anachronism    is    involved    in   the 
C  33 


The  Story  of  British   Diplomacy 

notion  that  affection  for  a  doomed  dynasty  might  have 
prevented  Danby  from  promoting  the  Revolution  and 
Settlement,  or  from  accepting,  as  the  reward  of  his 
services  to  the  usurper,  the  dukedom  of  Leeds  in  1 694. 

With  the  first  sovereign  since  Henry  VII.  to  reign 
by  a  purely  Parliamentary  title,  a  new  epoch  in  the 
narrative  of  diplomacy  naturally  begins.  The  parts 
which  it  seems  sometimes  thought  are  traditionally 
characteristic  of  Whig  and  Tory  in  connection  with 
foreign  policy  are  reversed.  William  III.  personifies 
the  principle  of  English  intervention  in  Continental 
politics ;  he  stands  forth  as  the  advocate  of  English 
championship  universal  and  ubiquitous,  of  Protestant- 
ism and  of  the  international  equilibrium.  Wherever 
and  whenever  Continental  policy,  whether  of  the 
Empire  or  of  France,  aims  at  exclusive  preponderance 
in  the  European  system  or  at  enforcing  the  paramount 
claims  of  the  papacy,  William  interposes  the  authority 
of  his  newly-acquired  realm.  All  this  is  resented  by  the 
Tories,  now  for  the  most  part  Jacobites,  as  ill-advised, 
interested,  unpatriotic  intermeddling. 

William's  marriage  with  a  Stuart  princess — the  very 
possession  of  the  British  crown — was  chiefly  valuable 
in  his  eyes  because  of  the  fresh  and  mighty  leverage 
which  he  thus  secured  for  combating  the  ambitions  or 
aggressions  of  the  French  king.  The  influences 
that  had  placed  him  on  his  father-in-law's  throne 
were  indeed  not  less  essentially  aristocratic  than  the 
earlier  Puritan  movement  for  subordinating  kingship 
to  Parliament  had  been  plebeian.  The  promoters  of 
the  seventeenth-century  revolution  were  not  less 
patrician  because  they  happened  chiefly  to  be  Whigs. 
Throughout,  therefore,  the  life  of  William  III.  the 

34 


Two  Centuries  of  English  Diplomacy 

maxim  of  Tory  statesmanship  was  the  deliverance  of 
England  from  Continental  entanglements.  To  talk  of 
Britain  as  asserting  an  imperial  authority  by  implicat- 
ing herself  in  Continental  broils  was  called  by  the 
Tories  the  treacherous  cant  of  the  Orange  and  Dutch 
faction.  The  second  article  in  the  international  creed 
of  Toryism  was  that,  if  war  became  inevitable,  an 
insular  Power  should  only  wage  that  war  by  sea. 
Our  true  interests,  in  the  authoritative  words  of 
Bolingbroke,  required  us  to  take  few  engagements  on 
the  Continent,  and  never  those  of  a  land  war  unless 
the  conjunction  is  such  that  nothing  less  than  the 
weight  of  Great  Britain  can  prevent  the  scales  of 
power  from  being  quite  overturned.  The  seventeenth 
century  had  produced  treatises  both  thoughtful  and 
original  on  foreign  policy.  One  of  these  was  the  Due 
de  Sully's  elaborate  speculation  for  securing  the 
European  equilibrium  by  a  kind  of  international 
Amphictyonic  assembly.  Bolingbroke  in  his  political 
writings  shows  his  debt  to  contemporary  thinkers  and 
authors,  but,  unlike  most  of  them,  looks  at  the  inter- 
national topics  of  the  time  from  an  essentially  English 
point  of  view,  as  well  as  expresses  himself  with  a 
force  and  terseness  that  are  all  his  own. 

Political  philosophy  had  been  thus  for  some  time 
teaching  by  precept  when  there  happened  events  that 
were  to  supply  her  with  a  rich  store  of  examples. 
The  state  system  of  modern  Europe  began  to  be 
organised  on  broad  and  general  lines  by  the  Peace  of 
Westphalia  already  dwelt  upon.  Some  fresh  details 
were  added  by  the  Peace  of  Ryswick,  to  which  we 
now  pass,  and  more  by  the  Treaty  of  Utrecht,  half 
a  generation  later.  The  course  and  significance  of 

35 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

these  two  transactions  will  presently  be  described  in 
their  proper  place. 

In  1672  Louis  XIV.  had  invaded  Holland.  From 
that  day  the  Dutch  prince,  who  incarnated  in  himself 
the  military  patriotisms  of  his  native  land,  schemed 
and  toiled  only  that  he  might  reduce  the  French 
monarchy  to  impotence.  After  1688,  he  was  able  to 
use  the  resources  of  Great  Britain  in  the  execution  of 
his  youthful  vow.  William's  patient  years  of  diplo- 
matic preparation  resulted  in  the  great  confederation, 
known  as  the  Grand  Alliance,  about  the  same  time  as 
his  accession  to  the  English  throne.  In  the  May  of 
1689,  the  combined  states  of  Brandenburg  (the 
Prussia  of  to-day),  the  Empire,  Savoy,  Spain  and 
the  Dutch  States  were  thus  arrayed  with  England 
against  France.  The  absolutism  of  Louis,  unchecked 
by  parliaments  or  council  board,  was  constituted  his  first 
great  advantage.  William's  diplomacy  was  hampered 
by  the  same  causes  that  so  often  interfered  with  his 
strategy.  Had  his  knowledge  of  human  nature  or 
his  sympathetic  skill  in  dealing  with  its  weaknesses 
been  on  the  same  scale  as  his  energies  and  will,  he 
might  have  been  as  great  in  the  council  as  on  the  field. 
Dexterous  manipulation  and  a  nicely  calculated  appeal 
to  national  prejudices  and  personal  feelings  might 
have  prevented  even  his  foreign  birth  from  operating 
as  an  impediment  in  the  way  of  his  political  projects. 
Of  the  condescension  to  the  foibles  of  individuals  or 
the  susceptibilities  common  to  masses  of  men,  which 
is  the  most  useful  and  indeed  the  essential  quality  of 
the  diplomatist,  William  had  nothing.  The  attributes 
that  go  to  the  making  of  a  successful  party-leader  at 
home  may,  as  in  the  case  of  Benjamin  Disraeli,  Lord 

36 


Two  Centuries  of  English  Diplomacy 

Beaconsfield,  at  the  Berlin  Conference,  make  him 
a  profoundly  impressive,  if  not  supremely  successful, 
figure  in  foreign  statesmanship.  Wholly  possessed 
by  the  one  paramount  interest  of  his  life,  William 
neither  derived  from  nature  nor  acquired  by  art  the 
consideration  for  popular  antipathies  even  a  con- 
temptuous recognition  of  which  would  have  prevented 
a  King  of  England  from  surrounding  himself  with 
Dutch  diplomatists  as  well  as  Dutch  generals.  If, 
however,  William  III.  cannot  himself  be  called  a 
great  diplomatist,  the  Treaty  of  Ryswick  by  ending 
his  war,  prepared  the  way  for  the  diplomacy  of  others. 


37 


CHAPTER  III 

TREATIES    AND    THEIR    MAKERS,    FROM    RYSWICK    TO 
UTRECHT 

The  Peace  of  Ryswick — Matthew  Prior — The  Partition  Treaties — 
Their  failure— The  War  of  the  Spanish  Succession— The  Tory 
Peace  Policy — The  Methuen  Treaty — Its  unpopularity  turned 
to  account  by  the  Tories — The  Utrecht  Peace  a  treaty  of 
intrigue — The  Abbe  Gaultier — Mesnager — Secret  treaties — 
The  popular  and  technical  meanings  of  "  the  Treaty  "  and  "  the 
Peace"  of  Utrecht — The  Utrecht  signatories — The  principal 
settlements  of  the  Utrecht  Peace — The  commercial  treaty. 

THE  Peace  of  Ryswick  in  1697  rather  marks  a 
stage  in  the  military  history  of  Europe  than 
constitutes  a  diplomatic  event  of  abiding  interest  and 
importance.  At  the  same  time  it  shows  the  third 
William's  diplomatic  judgment  in  a  light  more 
favourable  than  has  sometimes  been  recognised.  He 
could  have  secured  a  cessation  of  hostilities  four  years 
earlier  ;  he  is  sometimes  blamed  for  not  having  done 
so.  He  counted  in  the  later  negotiations  on  receiving 
stronger  support  from  Austria  than  was  actually  forth- 
coming. Had  he  not  been  disappointed,  he  might 
have  obtained  terms  which  would  have  made  the 
Ryswick  settlement  a  personal  and  national  triumph. 
As  it  was,  the  arrangement  proved  more  advantageous 
to  England  than  the  earlier  offer  of  1693.  That 
France  actually  obtained  Strasburg  and  very  nearly 
got  Luxemburg,  was  certainly  due  to  no  other 

38 


Treaties  and  their  Makers 

cause  than  the  slackness  of  William's  Imperial  ally. 
The  truth,  of  course,  was  that  circumstances  left  the 
English  king  little  choice  in  the  matter.  The  military 
operations  on  the  Continent  had  followed  the  repulse 
of  the  attempt  made  by  James  II.  to  re-establish 
himself  in  Ireland.  The  two  campaigns  together  had 
exhausted  for  the  time  the  energies  and  resources  of 
the  country.  Our  Ryswick  negotiators  were  not 
therefore  in  a  position  to  reject  the  constantly  rising 
conditions  demanded  by  France,  since  the  Duke  of 
Savoy's  defection  had  left  us  with  no  independent  ally 
but  the  emperor,  who  had  long  been  losing  interest  in 
the  struggle. 

Among  those  actively  associated  with  the  Ryswick 
diplomacy  was  Matthew  Prior,  a  man  too  personally 
interesting  to  be  ignored.  In  1907  Sir  Mortimer 
Durand's  successor  at  Washington  was  found  in  Mr 
James  Bryce,  then  M.P.  for  South  Aberdeenshire 
for  more  than  twenty  years.  Though  not  without 
official  as  well  as  Parliamentary  experience,  Mr  Bryce 
had  achieved  literary  distinction  before  he  became  a 
political  figure.  And  the  selection  of  men  of  letters 
for  high  diplomatic  posts  has  not  of  late  been  as 
common  as  it  was  in  the  Augustan  age  of  Queen 
Anne.  Joseph  Addison,  indeed,  proved  an  indifferent 
Secretary  of  State.  The  brother  litterateur,  Tickell, 
whom  he  made  his  Under- Secretary,  was  not  a  success. 
Even  apart  from  the  escapades  ending  in  his  expulsion, 
Steele  never  became  an  effective  member  of  the  House 
of  Commons.  George  Stepney,  it  is  true,  the  poet 
who  as  a  youth  is  said  to  have  made  grey  authors 
blush,  really  touched  a  high  point  of  excellence  in 
international  statesmanship ;  among  the  Englishmen 

39 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

of  his  time  none  knew  Germany  and  German  affairs  so 
well  as  this  facile  versifier,  equally  in  Latin  as  in 
English,  who  at  different  times  was  envoy  to  the 
emperor,  to  the  Electors  of  Brandenburg,  of  Saxony 
and  to  others.  Few  among  Germans  themselves 
knew  the  subject  so  well.  With  that  possible  excep- 
tion Matthew  Prior  stands  out  unrivalled  among  the 
poet-diplomatists  of  his  day.  "  One  Prior,"  is  Burnet's 
contemptuous  description  of  him ;  "  nothing  out  of 
verse,"  are  the  words  in  which  he  is  summed  up  by 
Pope.  Swift,  however,  at  least  as  severe  and,  in  such 
a  matter,  a  more  competent  judge,  formed  a  very 
different  estimate.  The  most  original  and  penetrating 
political  genius  of  the  time,  St  John,  afterwards  Viscount 
Bolingbroke,  endorsed  the  verdict  of  his  friend  Swift, 
and  rated  Prior's  business  habits  and  aptitude  for 
affairs  so  highly  as  to  urge  on  Queen  Anne  Prior's 
attachment  to  his  own  French  mission.  The  overture 
to  the  Peace  of  Ryswick  was  the  congress  at  The 
Hague.  The  English  representative,  Lord  Dursley, 
took  thither  Prior  with  him  as  Secretary.  This 
mission  produced  not  only  much  noticeably  excellent 
work  of  the  official  sort,  but  many  copies  of  impromptu 
verse  ;  these  have  something  like  the  musical  ring  of 
diplomatic  wit  which  resounded  in  a  later  century 
through  the  compositions  of  George  Canning  and  John 
Hookham  Frere.  "Who,"  asks  the  melodiously 
epigrammatic  Prior,  "so  blest  as  the  Englishen  Heer 
Secretaris  ?  " 

"  In  a  little  Dutch  chaise  on  a  Saturday  night, 
On  my  left  hand  a  Horace,  a  nymph  on  my  right, 
No  memoire  to  compose  and  no  post-boy  to  move 
That  on  Sunday  may  hinder  the  sweetness  of  love. 
40 


Treaties  and  their  Makers 

"  For  her,  neither  visits  nor  parties  at  tea, 
Nor  the  long-winded  cant  of  a  dull  refugee, 
This  night  and  the  next  shall  be  hers,  shall  be  mine, 
To  good  or  ill  fortune  the  third  we  design." 

In  the  October  of  1696,  Prior  was  on  his  way  back 
to  England,  bringing  with  him  the  articles  of  the 
Ryswick  treaty ;  he  received  two  hundred  guineas  for 
his  share  in  the  business.  Immediately  afterwards, 
under  the  Earl  Portland,  the  ambassador  to  France, 
he  was  occupied  with  the  secret  negotiations  for  the 
first  Partition  Treaty.  That  transaction  formed  the 
earliest  step  on  the  part  of  William  III.  and  Louis 
XIV.  towards  deliberating  on  the  peaceful  distribution 
of  the  King  of  Spain's  world- wide  possessions  among 
his  legitimate  heirs.  At  the  end  of  the  seventeenth 
century  the  health  of  Charles  II.  of  Spain  was  failing. 
To  devise  such  an  apportionment  of  the  childless 
Spanish  sovereign's  possessions  among  their  respective 
claimants  as  would  preserve  the  balance  of  power  and 
avert  the  chance  of  war,  became  the  cardinal  object  of 
English  diplomacy. 

William  III.  and  Louis  XIV.  were  agreed  in  wish- 
ing to  settle  the  Spanish  succession  without  consulting 
the  King  of  Spain  himself  or  the  Emperor  Leopold. 
Eventually  England,  France  and  Holland  came  to  an 
arrangement  by  which  the  Electoral  Prince  of  Bavaria, 
grand-nephew  of  Charles,  should  succeed  to  the  Indies, 
to  Spain,  and  to  the  Netherlands,  then  a  Spanish  state 
distinct  from  Holland.  The  Imperial  family  was  to 
be  bought  off  with  the  Milanese  ;  the  Dauphin  was  to 
get  the  two  Sicilies.  While,  however,  these  negotia- 
tions were  going  forward,  in  1698,  the  Bavarian 
prince  died.  In  1700,  therefore,  England,  France, 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

and  Holland  adopted  a  new  Partition  Treaty.  This 
gave  the  Indies,  Netherlands  and  Spain  to  the 
Archduke  Charles,  the  Emperor  Leopold's  son. 
France  received  Lorraine.  The  national  dissatis- 
faction in  Spain  with  these  dispositions  produced  from 
the  Spanish  ambassador  in  London  a  remonstrance 
with  the  English  Government,  so  peremptory  that 
King  William  at  once  handed  him  his  passports.  The 
Spanish  monarch  promptly  retaliated  by  showing  the 
representatives  of  Holland  and  England  out  of  Madrid. 
Charles  was  thus  left  with  the  ambassador  of  Louis 
XIV.  as  the  one  foreign  diplomatist  in  his  capital. 
His  court  had  become  the  scene  of  factions,  con- 
spiracies and  intrigues,  which  here  can  only  be  glanced 
at.  One  faction  had  for  its  centre  the  queen-mother, 
a  princess  of  the  Austrian  house,  in  her  adopted 
country  the  champion  of  her  Imperial  relatives.  In 
opposition  to  this  group,  Cardinal  Porto  Carrero, 
Archbishop  of  Toledo,  a  worthy  predecessor  of  the 
prince  of  Spanish  diplomatists,  Alberoni,  co-operated 
with  the  emissary  of  Louis  XIV.,  Harcourt,  the 
most  consummate  political  strategist  and  finished 
courtier  of  his  day,  a  renowned  general  in  the  field, 
whose  diplomacy,  social  and  political,  presented  an 
irresistible  blend  of  Parisian  wit  and  Castilian  gravity. 
An  Austrian  diplomatist,  who  appeared  afterwards  on 
the  scene,  injured,  rather  than  assisted,  the  cause  of 
the  Empire  with  the  court  or  the  capital.  The  sick 
king  was  in  the  hands  of  Porto  Carrero.  Harcourt 
was  ingratiating,  by  all  the  arts  of  which  he  was 
master,  himself  and  the  nation  he  represented,  with 
the  Spanish  people.  Perplexed  as  to  the  right  be- 

queathal  of  his  vast  possessions,  the  King  of  Spain, 

42 


Treaties  and  their  Makers 

at  Carrero's  instance,  consulted  the  Pope.  The  Vicar 
of  Christ  was  then  notoriously  the  tool  and  creature  of 
France.  The  will  of  Charles  II.  was  practically  dic- 
tated by  the  papal  representatives  at  his  palace.  In 
the  first  week  of  November  1700  he  died  ;  it  immedi- 
ately became  known  that  Charles  had  left  the  whole 
Spanish  monarchy  to  the  Duke  of  Anjou  ;  till  his  arrival 
the  Government  would  be  in  Cardinal  Carrero's  hands. 

But  not  without  sore  misgivings  and  many  tears  had 
Charles  at  last  put  his  name  to  this  instrument.  The 
triumph  for  France  was  greater  even  than  Louis  and 
his  servants  had  dared  to  hope.  "The  Pyrenees,"  on 
knowing  the  will  proudly  exclaimed  the  French  king, 
"have  ceased  to  exist."  The  violent  disturbance  of 
the  European  equilibrium  thus  produced  was  enough  of 
itself  to  have  plunged  the  world  in  war.  Yet  war, 
or  at  least  England's  active  participation  in  it,  might 
perhaps  have  been  averted  had  Louis  XIV.  not,  by  a 
master-stroke  of  infatuation  and  ill-faith,  obliterated 
the  differences  dividing  English  parties,  and  united  the 
entire  country  against  himself  as  the  nation's  enemy. 
The  death  of  Charles  II.  of  Spain  had  rendered 
the  efforts  of  English  diplomacy  in  the  matter  of 
the  Partition  Treaties  so  much  lost  labour,  and  had, 
irrationally  enough,  injured  the  reputation  of  the 
Whig  negotiators.  In  his  destruction  of  international 
compacts,  Louis  now  included  the  Treaty  of  Ryswick. 

James  II.  died  in  his  French  exile  within  a 
year  of  the  King  of  Spain.  Flushed  with  triumph, 
Louis  XIV.  recognised  as  the  lawful  heir  and  suc- 
cessor of  James  his  son,  the  old  Pretender.  This 
affront  to  William  as  the  constitutional  nominee  of 
the  English  Parliament  and  people  to  the  throne 

43 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

produced  a  complete  and  immediate  change  in  those 
political  conditions  at  home  on  which  has  always 
depended  English  policy  abroad.  During  the  years 
before  the  flouting  of  English  opinion  and  honour  by 
Louis  in  1701,  party  rivalry  in  Parliament  and  in  the 
country  had  been  so  keen  as  to  prevent  any  approach 
to  political  unanimity  on  the  subject  of  the  national 
concerns  beyond  seas.  Shortly  after  the  Ryswick 
peace,  the  Tories  succeeded  to  power  on  the  basis  of 
non-intervention  as  a  policy.  The  first  of  English 
interests,  commercial  and  Imperial,  was,  they  con- 
tended, peace.  Tory  policy  from  this  point  of  view 
was  clearly  put  by  Bolingbroke  in  a  single  terse  and 
often  quoted  sentence.  "  Our  true  interests,"  he  said, 
"require  that  we  should  take  few  engagements  on  the 
Continent  and  never  those  of  a  land  war,  unless  the 
conjunction  be  such  that  nothing  less  than  the  weight 
of  Great  Britain  can  prevent  the  scale  of  power  being 
quite  overturned."  This  is  the  first  occasion  that 
a  Tory  statesman  formulated  a  national  policy  in 
words  and  on  lines  for  which  parallels  might  be  found 
in  the  speeches  made  by  leading  politicians  on  both 
sides  during  our  own  time.  That  the  uncompromis- 
ingly pacific  counsels  of  Toryism  did  not  prevail  at 
the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century  and  that 
England  once  more  stood  forth  as  the  armed  champion 
of  the  balance  of  power,  was  primarily  due  to  the  with- 
drawal of  the  French  king  from  the  settlement  he  had 
solemnly  sealed  in  1697.  William's  diplomacy  showed 
itself  at  its  best  in  his  negotiations  with  the  emperor 
against  France.  On  i5th  May  1702,  by  preconcerted 
arrangement  proclamation  of  war  was  made  at  Vienna, 
in  London,  and  at  The  Hague.  Before  England's 

44 


Treaties  and  their  Makers 

implication  in  that  struggle  the  king,  who  was  his  own 
Foreign  Minister  as  well  as  his  own  commander-in 
chief,  died.  The  policy,  however,  of  William  III.  had 
too  deeply  rooted  itself  in  the  popular  mind  and  was 
too  much  helped  by  the  temper  and  acts  of  Louis,  to 
disappear  with  its  author.  It  was  a  Whig  war  and,  ex- 
cept during  her  last  year,  continued  throughout  the 
reign  of  Queen  Anne.  It  does  not  belong  to  the  present 
undertaking  to  follow,  or  even  to  summarise  the  for- 
tunes of  the  struggle  which  began  after  William's 
death  in  the  first  May  of  the  following  reign.  The 
actual  outbreak  of  war  was  preceded  by  long  and 
laborious  working  of  that  international  machinery 
whose  chief  triumph  is  the  preservation  of  peace. 
The  profitless  parade  of  diplomatic  activity,  which 
ushered  in  the  war  of  the  Spanish  Succession,  repeated 
itself,  on  the  same  scale  if  with  less  absence  of  definite 
result,  in  the  negotiations  that  closed  the  struggle  by 
the  Peace  of  Utrecht. 

The  interval  separating  these  two  sets  of  events 
was  marked  by  an  international  exploit  of  the  first 
political  importance  at  the  time,  as  well  as  historically 
memorable  for  its  consequences  to  the  social  life  and 
habits  of  the  English  upper  and  middle  classes.  This 
transaction,  during  the  second  year  of  the  Spanish 
Succession  War,  showed  English  diplomacy  not  only 
in  its  best,  but  in  its  most  interesting  aspect.  While 
William  was  forming  the  Grand  Alliance  against 
France,  and  indeed  from  the  time  when  Clarendon 
arranged  the  marriage  of  Charles  II.  with  Katharine 
of  Braganza,  Portugal  had  been  under  French  influ- 
ence. At  the  beginning,  however,  of  the  Succession 
War,  the  Austrian  proclivities  of  Peter  II.,  the 

45 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

Portuguese  king,  occasioned  disagreeable  disputes 
with  his  ministers.  Presently  he  began  to  sulk  and 
decline  all  discussion  on  the  subject  by  affecting  ignor- 
ance of  a  struggle  felt  in  every  quarter  of  the  world. 
He  knew  of  it  only  from  hearsay  and  took  not  the 
least  interest  in  its  progress.  He  would  have  nothing 
to  say  to  either  of  the  combatants  ;  he  objected  even 
to  receiving  the  ministers  of  the  belligerent  Powers. 
At  last,  as  he  said,  most  reluctantly,  he  yielded  to  the 
importunities  of  Louis  XIV.  as  far  as  to  entertain  the 
notion,  if  he  never  fully  signed  a  document,  of  an 
understanding  with  France.  Suddenly  he  discovered 
that  the  French  king's  word  could  not  be  trusted. 
Happily,  he  declared,  he  had  kept  clear  of  any 
entangling  engagements  with  Louis.  When  the 
instrument  was  brought  to  him  for  execution,  the  only 
notice  of  it  he  vouchsafed  was  to  throw  the  paper  down 
and,  in  a  childishly  peevish  temper,  to  kick  it  round  the 
room.  The  then  minister  from  England  at  the  Lisbon 
court,  Mr,  afterwards  Sir,  Paul  Methuen,  heard  of 
this,  as,  indeed,  he  heard  of  everything  that  passed  at 
the  palace.  He  immediately  sought  and  obtained  an 
interview  with  the  petulant  monarch.  Of  course  and 
rightly,  he  said,  His  Majesty  was  indignant  with  the 
French  king,  who  only  made  promises  to  break  them. 
Equally  of  course  the  Portuguese  sovereign  desired  to 
turn  the  present  world-wide  crisis  to  his  own  advan- 
tage. Only  let  him  be  sure  that  the  state  which  he 
honoured  with  his  confidence  should  be  in  a  position 
to  give  something  in  return.  Such  a  Power  was 
England.  What  would  His  Majesty  say  to  the 
admission  of  Portuguese  wines,  for  an  equitable  con- 
sideration, to  British  ports  at  a  duty  less  by  one  third 

46 


Treaties  and  their  Makers 

than  that  levied  on  French  vintages  ?  The  sovereign, 
while  maintaining  a  discreet  silence,  showed  his  satis- 
faction by  the  smile  that  began  to  overspread  his 
countenance.  His  chief  minister  was  immediately 
summoned.  Within  a  week  Methuen  was  able  to 
report  home  the  conclusion  of  the  famous  treaty  that 
bears  his  name. 

Never  was  there  concluded  an  international  engage- 
ment which  came  more  home  to  "the  bosoms  and  busi- 
ness "  of  the  English  nation.  The  countervailing  ad- 
vantage to  be  given  by  Portugal  was  the  importation  of 
all  woollen  goods  from  England.  The  political  and 
fiscal  consequences  of  the  arrangement  were,  however, 
almost  insignificant  in  comparison  with  its  social,  moral 
and  even  physical  results  to  the  English  generation 
that  witnessed  or  that  followed  its  ratification.  The 
familiar  lines  with  which  the  compact  inspired  the 
versifier  of  the  next  century  remain  the  truest  and 
most  suggestive  summary  of  the  Methuen  Treaty's 
tendencies  and  results— 

"  Proud  and  erect  the  Caledonian  stood, 
Prime  was  his  mutton  and  his  claret  good. 
*  Let  him  take  port ! '  the  English  statesman  cried  : 
He  took  the  poison  and  his  spirit  died." 

Hitherto  the  habitual  beverage  of  the  English 
upper  classes  had  been  distilled  from  the  grapes  of  Italy 
and  France.  The  Duke  of  Marlborough's  wars  had 
incidentally  involved  a  disagreeable  increase  in  the 
import  of  French  wines  to  England.  Many  hard 
drinkers  among  the  upper  classes  protested  that  they 
had  outlived  their  powers  of  drinking  port  with  im- 
punity. Bolingbroke,  whose  favourite  wine  was 

47 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

Florence,  emphasised  the  arguments  against  the  war 
which  were  drawn  from  the  cellar.     He  also  denounced 
the  Methuen    Treaty  as  an  anticipatory  interference 
with   the    commercial     arrangements     he    meditated 
between    England    and    her    European    neighbours. 
There  is  nothing  at  all  fanciful  in  attributing  to  the 
topers  a  good  deal  of  the  popular  pressure  placed  upon 
diplomacy  to  hasten  the  conclusion  of  peace.     Amongst 
the  more  highly-placed  tipplers  who  protested  against 
compulsory  port  as  murderous,  was  Dr  Aldrich,  the 
logician  and  Dean  of  Christchurch ;  another  was  Dr 
Radcliffe,  the  Jacobite  physician,  who  did  not  refuse  to 
attend  William  III.,  who  founded  the  institutions  which 
still  bear  his  name  at  Oxford,  and  who  from  his  bibulous 
capacities   was   known   as    "the    Priest  of  Bacchus." 
Many  other  physicians  of  note  went  with  Radcliffe,  as 
well  as  a  large  contingent  of  the  inferior  clergy.     On 
the   same   side  as,  and  by  way  of  contrast  to,  these 
divines  were  many  ladies  of  easy  virtue  who  idolised 
Bolingbroke  and  echoed  the  demand  of  the  clerical, 
medical   and   legal    viveurs    that    diplomacy,    by   re- 
establishing peace,  should,  in  the  interests  of  morality 
and  health,  reintroduce  the  lighter  French  wines,  too 
long  interdicted  by  the  military  ambition  of  Marlborough 
and  the  Whigs. 

It  will  be  seen  presently,  in  the  case  of  Alberoni, 
how  the  meanest  and  feeblest  of  human  beings  may 
be  made  instruments  in  a  great  diplomatist's  fall. 
In  the  present  instance  agencies  of  an  equally 
commonplace  character  played  a  definite  part  in  pro- 
moting the  international  policy  that,  exactly  ten  years 
after  the  Methuen  Treaty,  was  to  triumph  in  the 

Peace  of  Utrecht.     Services  connected  with  the  Treaty 

48 


Treaties  and  their  Makers 

of  Ryswick  had,  in  the  seventeenth  century,  made 
Sir  Edward  Villiers  Earl  of  Jersey.  With  the  Peace 
of  Utrecht  may  be  associated  the  transformation  of  its 
chief  promoter,  St  John,  into  Viscount  Bolingbroke, 
though  the  title  had  been  conferred  before  the  treaty 
was  actually  concluded. 

Before  entering  upon  any  details  connected  with 
the  most  famous  and  the  most  bitterly  controverted 
international  episode  of  the  early  eighteenth  century, 
the  Treaty  of  Utrecht  may  at  the  outset  be  described 
as  a  typical  product  of  an  age  in  which  European 
politics  formed  a  system  of  brigandage  tempered  by 
conspiracy.  Ignoring  the  welfare,  the  aspirations, 
even  the  national  tendencies  of  their  subjects,  sovereigns 
were  concerned  for  nothing  else  than  the  extension  of 
their  territory,  the  increase  of  their  resources  and  their 
own  personal  advancement  in  the  ranks  of  the  royal 
caste  which  then  formed  supreme  power  in  the  world. 
Statesmen,  supposing  them  not  to  be  engaged  in  any 
intrigue  against  their  monarchs,  were  reckless  of  or 
indifferent  to  the  means,  provided  they  could  achieve 
a  momentary  success  by  outwitting  a  party  rival  or 
successfully  counter-working  an  unpopular  colleague. 
The  Utrecht  settlement  was  less  the  outcome  of  inter- 
national deliberations  held  by  European  pleni- 
potentiaries than  the  embodiment  of  private  "  deals  " 
between  the  French  representative,  De  Torcy,  and 
the  English  Tory  leader,  Bolingbroke.  The  termina- 
tion of  a  struggle  that  was  bringing  no  return  pro- 
portionate to  the  expenditure  of  blood  and  money  and 
the  disastrous  interference  caused  by  it  to  English 
commerce  and  industry  formed  indeed  a  sufficient 

justification  for  the  policy  to  which  the  Tories,  as  the 
D  49 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

peace  party,  had  committed  themselves.  With 
Bolingbroke  and  Oxford  the  actually  determining 
motive  showed  itself  in  the  pressing  necessities  of 
the  Tory  party  at  home.  The  owners  of  the  old  acres 
had  long  and  bitterly  resented  their  growing  unimport- 
ance, social  and  political,  in  comparison  with  the 
increased  consequence  of  the  representatives  of  the 
new  wealth.  The  large  loans  necessary  for  carrying 
on  the  war  had  naturally  brought  into  prominence  the 
Whig  capitalists  and  eclipsed  the  Tory  landlords. 
Peace  had  thus  become  not  only  a  matter  of  pressing 
national  concern,  but,  as  Bolingbroke  repeatedly  said, 
a  paramount  necessity  to  the  Tory  system.  From 
Bolingbroke's  point  of  view,  and  indeed  according  to 
the  political  ethics  of  the  time,  so  indispensable  an  end 
justified  whatever  means  might  prove  the  least  difficult 
and  the  most  effective.  On  the  other  hand  the  lead- 
ing statesmen  of  France  desired  peace  even  more 
keenly  than  the  English  Tories.  The  Foreign  Minister 
of  Louis  XIV.,  De  Torcy,  frankly  confessed  that  he 
and  those  with  whom  he  acted  wished  for  it  as  a  dying 
man  may  desire  life  and  health.  Long  before  the 
Tories,  under  Harley  and  St  John,  came  into  power 
they  had  been  engaged  in  confidential  communications 
with  the  French  king's  advisers  about  terms  of  accom- 
modation. As  for  the  Dutch  allies  of  England  and 
the  Spanish  allies  of  France,  these  were  excluded  from 
all  knowledge  of  what  was  going  on.  There  were  two 
parties  to  the  peace  and  two  only ;  on  one  side  the 
Marquis  de  Torcy,  on  the  other  Henry  St  John, 
Viscount  Bolingbroke.  Among  their  most  active  and 
useful  instruments  was  one  of  those  ingenious  adven- 
turers who,  like  stormy  petrels,  appear  on  the  inter- 
So 


Treaties  and  their  Makers 

national  waters  when  the  air  is  charged  with  electricity 
and  the  sky  is  overcast.     During  the  earlier  years  of 
the   eighteenth   century,  diplomacy  offered   the  same 
career  to  ability,  often  of  very  humble  station,  as  war,  or 
as  had  been  done  in  the  Middle  Ages  by  the  Church. 
The  poet  Matthew  Prior  had  done  so  well  at  Ryswick 
that  Bolingbroke  vainly  endeavoured   to   secure  him 
for  one  of  the  plenipotentiaries  at  Utrecht.     As  it  was, 
Bolingbroke's   most   serviceable   agent   in    the   latter 
business,  Gaultier,  belonged  to  the  class  which,  a  little 
later,    was    to     supply    Spanish    diplomacy    with    a 
Ripperda.     Jean  Baptiste  Gaultier,  best  known  as  the 
Abbe  Gaultier,  was  a  French  priest  who  had  drifted  on 
the  tide  of  circumstance  and  adventure  to  England  ; 
here    he   arrived    in    the   train   of  Marshal  Tallard. 
When  the  recognition,  in  1701,  by  Louis  XIV.  of  the 
Pretender  as  King  of  England  caused  the  departure 
of  the    French  ambassador   from   the  English  court, 
Gaultier  informally  took  his  place  ;  settling  in  London 
he     kept    the    French    Government    accurately    in- 
formed  of  political    movements  and  national   feeling. 
Closely  associated  with  him   was   another  of  Boling- 
broke's    French     colleagues.         This     was     Nicolas 
Mesnager ;  born  at  Rouen  in  1665,  he  began  life  as  a 
barrister,  was  sent  on  his  first  diplomatic  mission  to 
Spain  by  Louis  XIV.  in  1700,  and  afterwards  to  The 
Hague.     In  the  August  of  1711  he  was  with  Gaultier 
in    London,  received  much  hospitality  from   Harley  ; 
with     him    and     with     Bolingbroke     he     concluded 
(8th  October  1711)   the  preliminaries   of  the  Anglo- 
French  agreement.     The  next  day  Bolingbroke  intro- 
duced Mesnager   secretly  to   the   queen  at   Windsor. 
Almost  immediately  afterwards  he  embarked  for  France, 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

taking  with  him  the  secret  instruments  which  were  the 
preface  to  the  opening  of  the  Utrecht  conferences. 

The  negotiations  thus  carried  on,  partly  by  letters, 
partly  by  journeys  of  the  men  now  mentioned  to 
Paris,  had  for  their  result  a  detailed  understanding 
between  the  French  and  English  intermediaries  about 
the  terms  of  peace.  "  Plain  dealing "  was  one  of 
Bolingbroke's  favourite  phrases.  Had  he  carried  it 
into  practice  now,  England  would  have  told  her  allies 
that  if  they  insisted  on  continuing  the  struggle,  they 
must  no  longer  count  on  her  co-operation.  That, 
however,  would  not  have  been  in  keeping  with  the 
Franco- Italian  subtlety  of  Bolingbroke's  political 
genius.  Keeping  his  own  counsel,  he  intrigued  with 
the  French  against  the  Dutch.  The  emperor  resented 
the  idea  of  concluding  a  peace  under  international 
pressure  as  bitterly  as  did  the  English  war  party,  the 
Whigs  and  Marlborough  themselves.  Yet  peace  was 
now  the  first  of  English  interests.  To  secure,  there- 
fore, the  Anglo-French  entente,  everything,  not  even 
excepting  England's  Dutch  allies  and  the  gallant 
Catalans,  must  be  sacrificed.  Unless  the  ministers  of 
Queen  Anne  and  of  Louis  XIV.  had  exchanged  secret 
guarantees  of  a  mutual  understanding  before  the  repre- 
sentatives met  at  Utrecht,  isolated  from  all  European 
support,  England  would  have  been  equally  impotent  to 
secure  peace  or  resume  war.  In  all  this,  of  course, 
Bolingbroke  and  Oxford,  like  De  Torcy  and  their 
French  colleagues,  were  acting  rather  as  conspirators 
than  as  diplomatists ;  but  then  conspiracy  had  long 
been  counted  one  of  the  legitimate  international 
methods  of  the  time.  In  proof  of  this,  it  is  enough  to 
mention  the  precedent  of  1698.  In  that  year  the  con- 

52 


Treaties  and  their  Makers 

ferences  held  at  Ryswick  would  have  ended,  not  in  a 
treaty,  but  in  failure  involving  probably  a  new  war,  if 
the  English  and  French  plenipotentiaries,  Villiers, 
Earl  of  Jersey,  and  Callieres  respectively,  had  not,  on 
first  entering  the  council -chamber,  brought  in  their 
pockets  a  written  agreement  on  all  controversial  points. 
The  precedent  of  1678,  the  year  of  the  Nimeguen 
Treaty,  sometimes  cited  as  applicable  to  Utrecht,  is 
not  exactly  relevant ;  for  then  the  immediately  contract- 
ing parties  were  not  the  ministers  of  kings,  but  the  kings 
themselves.  Louis  XIV.  at  that  time  desired  peace 
with  Holland.  William  of  Orange  would  have  con- 
tinued the  war.  Charles  II.  of  England  secretly  agreed 
with  Louis  to  force  a  cessation  of  hostilities  on  William 
by  assuring  the  French  king  of  England's  neutrality. 

England's  desertion  of  the  Catalans  and  her  acqui- 
escence in  the  territorial  weakening  of  Holland,  her 
ally,  may  have  been  indefensible.  To  the  secret 
Anglo-French  treaty — which  preceded  Utrecht  and 
which,  in  return  for  her  recognition  of  Philip  V.  as 
King  of  Spain,  secured  her  the  Protestant  succession 
at  home  and  territorial  gains  abroad — it  would  be  a 
pedantic  anachronism  to  object  on  the  ground  of 
principle.  Recent  experience  had  emphasised  the 
fact  that  without  the  formal  execution  of  a  diplomatic 
instrument  practically  binding  on  England  and  France, 
no  sure  step  toward  peace  could  betaken.  In  1710 
the  Gertruydenberg  Congress  had  broken  down  over 
the  relations  between  the  Austrian  Empire  and  the 
French  monarchy.  At  the  period  of  Utrecht,  England 
might  have  carried  the  other  delegates  with  her 
in  the  matter  of  strengthening  the  Dutch  frontier. 
The  one  indispensable  preliminary  condition  was  for 

53 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

England  not  to  insist  on  the  withdrawal  by  Louis  of 
his  grandson,  Philip  V.  of  Spain,  in  favour  of  the 
Archduke  Charles,  who  became  emperor  before  the 
Utrecht  conferences  opened.  When,  in  the  January  of 
1711,  Great  Britain  suggested  the  meeting  at  Utrecht, 
she  would  have  been  making  merely  an  academic  pro- 
posal, unless  she  had  been  prepared  to  offer  France 
terms  on  which  a  great  nation  and  a  proud  monarch 
could,  without  sacrifice  of  their  honour,  have  seconded 
the  British  movements  in  the  direction  of  compromise. 
It  had  already  become  clear  that  the  chief  ostensible 
object  of  the  war,  that  of  keeping  a  Bourbon  prince 
from  the  Spanish  throne,  must  be  sacrificed.  It  was 
also  plain  that  to  push  the  humiliation  of  Louis 
XIV.  too  far  would  be  to  risk  the  wreck  of  the  whole 
negotiations.  The  French  king  must  not  be  asked 
to  sue  for  peace  from  conquerors ;  it  was  enough 
that  he  should  take  part  in  the  arrangements  for  its 
conclusion  on  equal  terms  with  the  neighbouring 
Powers.  Practically  the  secret  preliminaries,  already 
settled  in  London,  had  secured  the  peace  before  the 
conferences  at  Ultrecht  commenced.  Louis  XIV. 
saved  his  honour  by  England's  acceptance  of  his 
grandson  as  Sovereign  of  Spain.  England  secured 
the  French  recognition  of  the  Hanoverian  dynasty,  the 
cession  of  Minorca,  of  Gibraltar,  of  Newfoundland  and 
a  great  increase  of  her  territories  on  the  North 
American  continent. 

"  The  Treaty  of  Utrecht  "is  an  expression  with  a 
twofold  meaning ;  used  in  different  senses  the  words 
are  at  once  popular  and  inexact  or  technically  accurate. 
The  entire  group  of  international  compacts  whose 
scene  was  the  old  Dutch  town,  in  the  second  decade 

54 


Treaties  and  their  Makers 

of  the  eighteenth  century,  is  known  officially  to  the 
chanceries  of  Europe  as  the  Peace  of  Utrecht.  When 
our  Foreign  Office  speaks  of  the  Treaty  of  Utrecht  it 
refers  to  the  treaty  of  commerce  and  navigation 
signed  between  Great  Britain  and  France,  nth  April 
1713.  This  is  the  famous  instrument  chiefly  due  to 
Bolingbroke  and  the  result  of  the  secret  negotiations 
already  described.  It  was  signed  on  behalf  of  France 
by  Nicolas,  Marquis  de  Huxelles,  and  by  Nicolas 
Mesnager.  The  men  who  signed  for  England  were 
John,  Bishop  of  Bristol,  and  Thomas,  Earl  of  Strafford. 
The  episcopal  diplomatist  whose  name  on  the  docu- 
ment stands  before  his  colleague's,  John  Robinson, 
was  or  had  been  Lord  Privy  Seal,  had  gone  through 
a  thorough  apprenticeship  to  diplomacy,  beginning  at 
the  Court  of  Sweden  where  he  was  chaplain,  before 
settling  down  seriously  to  professional  churchmanship. 
"  A  little  brown  man  of  grave  and  venerable  appear- 
ance, in  manners  and  taste  more  of  a  Swede  than  an 
Englishman,  full  of  good  sense,  punctiliously  careful  in 
business  "  ;  such  was  the  impression  left  by  him  in  the 
best  Continental  circles  of  the  period.  The  pleni- 
potentiary whose  name  came  next,  Thomas  Went- 
worth,  son  of  Sir  William  Wentworth  of  Northgate- 
Head,  Wakefield,  having  served  as  page-of-honour  to 
Mary  of  Modena,  queen  of  James  II.,  in  1688,  entered 
the  army  a  little  later ;  in  1695  succeeded  his  cousin  as 
Baron  Raby  ;  became  ambassador  at  Berlin  in  1706; 
five  years  later  his  diplomatic  services  secured  him 
the  earldom  of  Strafford.  Successful  in  international 
politics,  he  failed  in  Parliament,  where  his  wealth  was  not 
regarded  as  any  compensation  for  his  illiterate  loqua- 
city, or  for  the  anniversary  declamation  on  the  subject 

55 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

of  the  army,  inflicted  by  him  on  the  Upper  House. 
M  There  was  nothing,"  says  Hervey  in  his  pleasant 
way,  "  so  low  as  his  dialect,  except  his  understanding." 
The  treaty  of  friendship,  commerce  and  naviga- 
tion, including  as  it  did  every  sort  of  minor  matter, 
executed  by  these  two  British  plenipotentiaries,  was 
only  intended  to  be  between  England  and  France. 
The  English  surrender  of  the  Catalans  to  the 
wrath  of  Philip  V.  had  dissatisfied  many  friends  of  this 
country  in  Spain.  Bolingbroke's  undisguised  appeal 
to  the  English  jealousy  of  Dutch  commerce  made  the 
settlement  of  European  affairs  effected  at  Utrecht  as 
unpopular  in  Holland  as  in  Hanover,  or  among  the 
English  Whigs  themselves.  Eventually,  however, 
the  Dutch,  if  with  no  better  grace  than  the  emperor 
himself,  came  round  to  the  Utrecht  arrangement. 
The  emperor  indeed  throughout  refused  any  formal 
responsibility  for  the  documents  "done"  at  Utrecht. 
But  practically  he  made  himself  a  party  to  them  when, 
in  the  March  of  the  next  year  (1714),  he  agreed  at 
Rastadt  to  withdraw  his  troops  from  Catalonia,  from 
the  islands  of  Majorca  and  Ivica,  in  return  for  the 
engagement  by  France  to  restore  to  the  Empire 
Brisach,  Fribourg,  and  Kehl,  as  well  as  to  destroy  the 
Rhenish  fortresses  built  by  France  since  1697.  On 
the  other  hand  the  emperor  was  to  re-establish  in 
their  dignities  and  former  territories  the  protege's  of 
France,  the  Electors  of  Bavaria  and  Cologne.  This 
arrangement,  first  draughted  in  the  spring  of  1714  at 
Rastadt,  was  confirmed  in  the  autumn  at  Baden. 
Alsace,  gained  by  France  at  Ryswick,  was  confirmed 
to  its  French  possessors  ;  with  them  it  remained  till 
the  Treaty  of  Frankfort  that  closed  the  Franco- 

56 


Treaties  and  their  Makers 

Prussian  War  (1871).  In  its  general  outlines  the 
Utrecht  settlement  regulated  international  relations  till 
the  latter  part  of  the  nineteenth  century.  But  while 
Gibraltar  remains  to  this  day  invincibly  English, 
Minorca  reverted  to  Spain  at  the  beginning  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  The  immediate  effect  of  the 
treaty  on  Spain  was  to  deprive  her  of  her  possessions 
in  Italy  and  the  Netherlands.  Seen  in  its  relation  to 
the  later  developments  of  the  European  system,  the 
most  suggestive  among  the  separate  international 
arrangements  included  by  the  Treaty  of  Utrecht  was 
the  recognition  as  a  kingdom  by  France  of  the  power 
that  to-day  dominates  Germany.  In  his  own  domin- 
ions indeed  the  ruler  of  Prussia,  the  first  Frederick, 
had  been  known  as  a  king  in  1702.  The  earliest 
King  of  Prussia  acknowledged  by  France  under  the 
Treaty  of  Utrecht  was  his  son  Frederick  William,  who 
reigned  till  1740.  The  treaty  further  transformed 
the  Duke  of  Savoy  into  the  King  of  Savoy.  The 
world  had  still  to  wait  a  hundred  and  fifty-seven  years 
before  the  wars  of  our  time  resulted  in  the  replace- 
ment by  Prussia  of  Austria  in  the  German  leadership 
and  in  an  Italy  united  under  a  monarch  of  the 
House  of  Savoy — Victor  Emmanuel.  It  is,  however, 
scarcely  too  much  to  say  that  the  earliest  preliminaries 
of  these  two  consummations  formed  part  of  the  nine 
separate  instruments  included  in  the  Treaty  of  Utrecht. 
Bolingbroke,  it  has  been  seen,  objected  to  the 
Methuen  treaty  with  Portugal  because  it  might 
interfere  with  his  own  long-cherished  Free  Trade 
policy.  As  a  fact,  his  commercial  arrangements,  an 
essential  part  of  the  Utrecht  treaty,  placed  the  trade  of 
England  on  an  equality  with  that  of  France.  By 

57 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

this  time  his  critics  saw  in  the  international  settlements 
of  1 7 1 3  the  outcome  of  the  plot  which,  with  Gaul  tier's 
help  and  in  the  interests  of  the  Tory  party,  he  had 
laid  to  satisfy  France  at  the  expense  chiefly  of 
Holland.  So  as  regards  the  commercial  treaty,  the 
Turkey  merchants  and  other  guilds,  who  complained 
that  it  meant  their  ruin,  declared  that  here  Boling- 
broke's  tool,  who  in  other  matters  had  been  the  Abbe* 
Gaultier,  was  a  low  fellow  who  had  been  a  footman, 
but  who  had  a  turn  for  figures  and  other  dirty  work 
of  that  sort,  Arthur  More. 


CHAPTER  IV 

EARLY    HANOVERIAN    DIPLOMACY 

Addison's  Cato  turned  to  Tory  account  by  Bolingbroke — The 
Continental  results  of  the  Peace  of  Utrecht — Cardinal  Alberoni 
Prime  Minister  of  Spain — James,  Earl  Stanhope — The  Anglo- 
Spanish  Alliance — Alberoni's  intrigues  with  Sweden  and 
Russia — Stanhope's  meeting  in  Hanover  with  the  Abbe 
Dubois— The  Triple  Alliance  of  1717— -The  Peace  of 
Passarowitz  and  the  Quadruple  Alliance  of  1718 — The  fall  of 
Alberoni — Ripperda — The  Pragmatic  Sanction — Walpole  as  a 
diplomatist — Cardinal  Fleury — The  Austro-Spanish  Alliance 
against  England— The  Treaty  of  Seville— The  first  Vienna 
Treaty — The  Definitive  Peace  of  Vienna — The  Family  Compact 
°f  J733 — War  with  Spain — Was  Walpole's  policy  justifiable? — 
The  War  of  the  Austrian  Succession — Carteret — Sir  Thomas 
Robinson  brings  about  the  Treaty  of  Breslau — The  Treaties  of 
Fuessen,  Hanover  and  Dresden — The  fourth  Lord  Holdernesse 
—The  change  of  allies  by  the  Treaties  of  Westminster  and 
Versailles — The  European  situation  in  1736. 

DISHING  the  Whigs,"  to  use  a  familiar  and 
later  figure  of  speech,  was  admitted  by 
its  English  authors  to  have  been  their  real  motive 
in  the  Treaty  of  Utrecht.  Bolingbroke's  policy 
with  that  end  displayed  itself  characteristically  else- 
where than  at  the  Utrecht  conferences.  Joseph 
Addison  had  been  for  some  time  the  chief  writer  on 
the  Whig  side.  His  tragedy  Cato  was  produced 
during  the  year  in  which  the  Treaty  of  Utrecht  was 
signed.  The  Whigs  determined  to  mark  the  first 
night  of  the  drama  with  a  political  demonstration. 
The  piece  might  of  course  be  counted  on  to  contain 

59 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

noble  sentiments  and  stirring  speeches  in  favour  of 
the  Whig  principle  of  civil  and  religious  liberty. 
To  lead  the  applause  of  such  passages,  a  fashion- 
able Whig  claque  had  established  themselves  in  the 
Covent  Garden  proscenium.  Bolingbroke,  however, 
had  been  beforehand  in  insuring  the  occasion  should 
be  turned  to  the  Tory  account.  Each  speech, 
soliloquy,  aside  or  piece  of  acting  charged  with  a 
complimentary  reference  to  the  hatred  of  tyrants 
or  to  the  public  danger  constituted  by  the  over- 
mastering power  of  an  individual  subject  was  at 
once  taken  up  by  Bolingbroke  and  by  the  friends 
with  him  in  his  stage-box.  The  audience  showed 
themselves  quick  to  seize  the  point.  The  ambitious 
and  all-dominating  man  who  bestrode  the  state  like 
a  Colossus — who  was  he  but  the  military  dictator  of 
the  hour,  the  Duke  of  Marlborough  himself?  The 
Peace  of  Utrecht — what  was  it  but  the  patriotic 
device  of  the  Tories  as  the  true  friends  of  liberty 
and  peace  for  depriving  Marlborough  of  his  perilous 
pre-eminence.  From  Marlborough,  when  reduced  to 
the  level  of  an  ordinary  citizen,  English  subjects  would 
learn  the  wisdom  which  would  prevent  their  princes 
from  prolonging  the  nationally  ruinous  game  of  war  ? 
The  effect  of  the  appearance  and  action  in  the  play- 
house of  the  chief  author  of  the  treaty  reached  a  most 
dramatic  climax  when,  just  before  the  curtain  dropped, 
Bolingbroke,  calling  the  principal  actor  to  his  box, 
presented  him  with  a  purse  of  gold.*  In  this  way  the 
Whig  playwright's  drama,  instead  of  serving  for  a 

*  Now  too,  probably  for  the  first  time,  diplomatic  achievement  was 
recognised  in  the  Anglican  ritual  by  Handel's  commission  to  compose  a 
Te  Deum  in  honour  of  the  treaty. 

60 


Early  Hanoverian  Diplomacy 

panegyric  on  the  military  idol  of  the  party,  was 
construed  by  Bolingbroke's  cleverness  as  a  popular 
demonstration  in  favour  of  the  chief  object  of  the 
Whig  attack,  the  Utrecht  treaty.  On  the  whole, 
Bolingbroke's  dexterous  interpretation  of  the  play  was 
in  keeping  with  popular  sentiment  about  the  peace. 

The  real  safeguard  against  the  union  of  the  French 
and  Spanish  monarchies  in  one  king  was  less  its 
prohibition  by  the  treaty  than  the  jealous  and  mutually 
opposed  tempers  of  the  two  nations.  The  immediate 
Continental  result  of  the  Utrecht  arrangements  was 
to  leave  France  slightly  weakened  rather  than  perman- 
ently injured,  and  to  give  Holland  a  grudge  against 
England  for  exclusion  from  any  share  in  the  compact 
known  as  the  Assiento,  making  Britain  the  great 
slave-dealer  of  the  western  world. 

The  court  of  Hanover  detested  the  treaty  not  less 
than  did  the  Emperor  of  the  Dutch  himself.  Its 
conclusion  by  the  Tories  sufficed  to  prejudice  the 
Hanoverian  dynasty  in  favour  of  the  Whigs.  The 
Tories  were  thus  more  and  more  impelled  to  the  side 
of  the  Pretender.  Unresistingly  acquiesced  in  by  the 
mass  of  the  English  people,  the  Treaty  of  Utrecht 
completely  served  the  end  of  all  Bolingbroke's  foreign 
or  domestic  intrigues.  Marlborough's  victories  had  for 
the  time  destroyed  Tory  ascendancy.  It  was  re-estab- 
lished after  Utrecht ;  it  remained  till  Bolingbroke's 
disappearance  and  the  accession  of  the  first  Hanoverian 
sovereign  brought  upon  the  stage  the  first  and  greatest 
among  the  Whig  diplomatists  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

During  the  first  quarter  of  the  eighteenth  century 
the  two  foremost  figures  in  the  international  politics 

of   Europe   were   the    Englishman    who   became   the 

61 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

first  Earl  of  Stanhope,  and  the  Spanish  ecclesiastic, 
Cardinal  Alberoni.  The  pair  started  as  friends,  even 
colleagues ;  they  were  forced  into  rivalry.  European 
diplomacy  became  a  duel  between  the  two.  "  Five 
years  of  peace  will  suffice  to  raise  Spain  to  an  equality 
with  the  greatest  nations  of  the  earth."  The  man 
who  made  this  boast,  Alberoni,  a  poor  gardener's  son 
who,  in  1714,  had  risen  to  the  Spanish  premiership, 
had  an  appearance  and  manner  as  remarkable  as  his 
career.  His  head,  disproportionately  large  for  his  body, 
might  have  suggested  a  comic  monstrosity  of  the 
pantomimic  stage.  His  habits  were  coarse  even  for 
a  Spanish  peasant  of  that  period.  He  systematically 
posed  as  a  blend  of  the  toady  and  the  merry-andrew 
that  he  might  take  his  rivals  and  opponents  off  their 
guard.  They  had  reason  to  regret  it  if  he  succeeded, 
for  none  of  his  contemporaries  could  afford  to  give 
him  a  single  point.  Having  become  Bishop  of  Parma, 
he  was  sent  by  his  patron,  the  Duke  of  Parma,  to 
confer  with  the  Due  de  Venddme,  a  soldier  as  in- 
famous for  the  coarseness  of  his  manners  and  the  foul- 
ness of  his  speech  as  he  was  renowned  for  his  skill  and 
courage  in  the  field.  Alberoni  saw  the  situation  at  a 
glance  and  knew  intuitively  how  to  deal  with  his  man. 
Suiting  himself  to  Vendome's  characteristic  humours, 
and  outdoing  him  in  his  own  accomplishments, 
Alberoni  issued  from  the  interview  as  a  conqueror 
from  a  fight.  Henceforth  his  career  was  secure. 
His  cardinal's  cap  came  about  the  same  time  that 
Philip  V.  made  him  prime  minister.  His  policy  had 
for  its  earliest  motive  the  recovery  for  Spain  of  her 
lost  Italian  provinces  and  the  restoration  of  the 

supremacy   she   had    reached   when    Charles   V.    ex- 

62 


Early  Hanoverian  Diplomacy 

changed  a  palace  for  a  monastery.     A  nation's  power 
was  then  measured  by  the  extent  of  its  possessions. 
Nor  did  Alberoni  so  far  rise  above  the  conventional 
ideas  of  his  day  as  to  recognise,  even  if  he  secretly 
suspected,  that  the  Flemish  and  Italian  provinces  of 
Spain  were  and  must  be  a  source  of  weakness  rather 
than    strength.      The    two    rivals    against   whom    he 
pitted  himself  were  the  emperor,  who  had  wounded 
his  pride,  and  the  French  regent  whom  he  considered 
more  seriously  in  his  way.     His  first  act  on  coming 
into  power  was  to  attempt  the  establishment  of  good 
relations    with    England.       Thus    he    brought   to   a 
satisfactory  close  the  long-standing  arrangements  for 
a  commercial  treaty  between   the   two   nations.     He 
further   reinstated   the    British    subjects,    by   a   most 
favoured     "  nation-clause,"     in    the    commercial    ad- 
vantages  received   from   the   Austrian   kings   of  the 
Peninsula.     Bolingbroke  may  have  acted  against  the 
Hanoverians ;  he  was  never  himself  a  true  Jacobite. 
So   Alberoni,    a  prince  of  the  Church  to  which  the 
Pretender  sacrificed   the   crown,  had   no   sentimental 
preference   for   intrigues  with   the    Stuarts,    and    im- 
pressed  the    British    representative   at    Madrid   with 
his  zeal  for  George   I. 

The  great  work  of  English  diplomacy  in  the  early 
eighteenth  century  was  Stanhope's  Anglo  -  French 
Alliance  of  1716.  That  had  been  preceded  by  Anglo- 
Spanish  negotiations  undertaken,  at  least  by  Spain, 
in  order  to  strengthen  by  a  British  alliance  the 
Peninsula  against  France  on  the  one  hand  and  the 
Empire  on  the  other.  This  business  was  managed 
entirely  by  Alberoni  and  Stanhope.  The  former  has 
been  described  ;  I  now  pass  to  the  English  negotiator. 

63 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

James  Stanhope,  a  member  of  an  old  Northampton- 
shire family,  was  a  soldier-diplomatist,  as  his  associate 
Alberoni  belonged  to  the  ecclesiastical  section  of  the 
class.  He  had  indeed  been  born  into  diplomacy,  for 
his  father,  Alexander  Stanhope,  was  for  sixteen  years 
envoy  to  the  States-General  of  Holland.  While  a 
soldier,  James  Stanhope  had  served  with  distinction  at 
Piedmont,  at  Namur,  at  Cadiz,  at  Barcelona,  at  Madrid 
and  at  Port  Mahon.  Rooke  had  already  (1704) 
planted  the  British  colours  on  the  rock  of  Gibraltar. 
To  Stanhope,  with  his  colleague  Leake,  was  due  the 
inclusion  of  Minorca  in  England's  Mediterranean  gains 
at  Utrecht.  Stanhope's  career  as  a  diplomatist  was 
preceded  by  an  apprenticeship  to  official  life  at  home. 
Having  made  his  mark  in  both  Houses  he  was  at  one 
time  a  commissioner  in  the  Treasury,  at  another 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer.  His  earliest  diplomatic 
mission  was  to  Paris.  Then  in  quick  succession  came 
errands  to  Madrid,  to  The  Hague,  to  Berlin  and  to  the 
Imperial  court  at  Vienna.  At  the  Utrecht  conferences 
Stanhope  served  the  Whig  interest,  made  himself  the 
spokesman,  and  gained  the  confidence  of  the  English 
commercial  classes  by  his  opposition  to  Bolingbroke's 
Anglo-French  trade  compact.  As  Secretary  of  State, 
Stanhope,  by  his  accurate  and  comprehensive  acquaint- 
ance of  international  affairs,  really  acted  as  Minister  of 
the  Exterior  before  the  Foreign  Office  as  a  department 
of  State  had  come  into  existence.  During  the  years 
in  which  Stanhope's  influence  dominated  diplomacy 
may  be  traced  the  beginnings  of  the  jealousy  between 
the  English  and  Russian  courts.  Alberoni's  machina- 
tions, indeed,  helped  to  sow  the  seeds  among  the 

English  masses  of  that  distrust  in  the  Czar  and  his 

64 


Early  Hanoverian  Diplomacy 

statesmen  which  has  been  liable  since  periodically  to 
influence  the  diplomacy  of  Great  Britain. 

In  1716  occurred  an  international  episode  in  which 
the  Foreign  Ministers  of  Spain  and  of  England,  from 
having  been  friends  and,  in  a  sense,  colleagues, 
began  to  counter-work  each  other's  political  schemes. 
The  diplomatists  of  other  nations  entered  into  and 
helped  to  stimulate  the  rivalry  between  Alberoni  and 
Stanhope.  Goertz,  the  chief  adviser  in  foreign  affairs 
of  Charles  XII.  of  Sweden,  urged  upon  his  master  an 
alliance  with  Peter  the  Great  of  Russia.  In  this  way 
the  supremacy  of  Northern  Europe  would  have  been 
divided  between  the  Swedish  and  Russian  monarchies. 
Towards  that  compact  Alberoni's  attitude  was  not  one 
of  merely  benevolent  neutrality ;  he  did  all  in  his 
power  to  supply  the  funds  necessary  to  promote  it, 
with  the  immediate  view  of  weakening  Denmark, 
ruining  Hanover,  and  securing  the  landing  on  British 
soil,  from  Russian  ships,  of  Swedish  troops  who  might 
restore  the  Stuarts. 

It  so  happened,  however,  that  in  the  year  already 
mentioned  Stanhope  accompanied  George  I.  dur- 
ing one  of  his  journeys  to  Hanover.  There  the 
English  minister  met  the  Abbe  Dubois,  the  priest- 
diplomatist  employed  by  the  French  regent  Orleans. 
That  interview  wrought  a  complete  transforma- 
tion scene  in  the  politics  of  Europe.  The  Anglo- 
French  alliance  of  1716  at  once  dominated  the  whole 
European  situation.  There  could  be  no  security  for 
the  new  English  dynasty  so  long  as  it  lacked  means 
for  checking  Stuart  conspiracy  and  intrigue.  England's 
promotion  of  the  Barrier  Treaty,  securing  a  line  of 

fortresses  in  the  Austrian  Netherlands,  garrisoned  by 
E  65 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

the    Dutch,    but   at   the   charge   of  Austria,   had    so 
offended   the   emperor   that   the    Hanoverians    could 
expect   no   help   from    him   against   Jacobite  designs 
and   attacks.     During  their  conferences  at  Hanover, 
Stanhope  and  Dubois  negotiated  the  Triple  Alliance 
of  1717.     The    treaty  relation    into  which    England, 
France  and  Holland  now  entered  secured  this  country 
against  attacks  from  abroad  and  Stuart  conspiracy  at 
home.     Thenceforth  the  Pretender  disturbed  but  little 
the   course   of   English   politics    or   the    progress    of 
English  prosperity.     The  fresh  foreign  guarantees  for 
the  Protestant  succession  now  given  were  accompanied 
by    material   safeguards,  presently   to    be  mentioned, 
against  foreign  attack  on   England.     Napoleon  used 
to  say  that  to  possess  Antwerp  was  to  hold  a  pistol  at 
the   head   of   England.       In    the    eighteenth   century 
Dunkirk    first    and    Mardyke    afterwards    formed    a 
menace  to  British  security  such  as  Napoleon  saw  in 
Antwerp.     Mardyke  was  on  the  same  coast  as,  and 
quite   close    to,    Dunkirk.     Its    harmlessness   to   this 
country  was  practically  insured  by  a  provision  in  the 
Triple  Alliance  treaty,  reducing  its  sluices  to  a  width 
of  sixteen  feet,  and  so  prohibiting  the  entrance  or  exit 
of  ships  of  war  and  privateers. 

For  the  reasons  and  in  the  way  already  described, 
peace  had  become  a  domestic  and  dynastic  necessity 
to  England.  It  was  scarcely  less  important  to  France. 
To  the  regent,  personally,  it  was  a  matter  of  life  or 
death.  Under  the  Utrecht  treaties  he  was  next  heir 
to  the  French  throne.  With  a  fresh  war  the  obliga- 
tions of  these  treaties  would  have  ceased  to  exist. 
The  renunciation  by  Philip  V.  of  the  French  crown 
would  have  become  waste  paper,  and  he  himself  the 

66 


Early  Hanoverian  Diplomacy 

lawful  heir  of  Louis  XV.  The  Hanover  conference 
between  the  two  diplomatic  managers  of  their  re- 
spective sovereigns  not  only,  for  the  first  time  since 
1688,  resulted  in  a  real  friendship  between  the  two 
countries,  but  for  some  years  to  come  made  the  Anglo- 
French  alliance  the  controlling  force  in  European 
affairs.  At  the  time  it  had  another  consequence. 
Peter  the  Great  had  recently  made  a  progress  across 
Europe  with  the  hope  of  inducing  France  to  join  the 
Northern  confederation  against  England.  Dubois  at 
once  acquainted  Stanhope  with  all  that  was  going  on, 
and  strengthened  himself  in  his  determination  of 
fidelity  to  the  new  compact. 

During  the  years  now  looked  back  on,  diplomacy, 
if  never  more  active,  had  also  never  been  more 
unscrupulous.  It  was  indeed  an  aggravated  Machia- 
vellianism. The  relations  between  the  sovereigns 
and  the  statesmen  of  the  world,  disclosed  by 
the  foregoing  narrative,  were  rather  those  of  con- 
spirators, each  eager  to  seize  before  his  fellow  the 
dagger  by  the  handle,  than  of  statesmen  consulting 
about  monarchies  and  peoples.  Spanish  diplomacy 
continued  to  be  the  most  powerful  of  European 
agencies.  It  was  imitated  and  rivalled,  if  not  out- 
done, by  Spain's  disciples  in  the  diplomatic  art 
elsewhere.  Austria,  Italy  and  Turkey  had  been 
engaged  in  a  war,  anxiously  and  actively  watched  by 
England.  In  July  1718,  English  mediation  secured 
the  Peace  of  Passarowitz.  This  extended  the  Austrian 
frontier  so  as  to  include  part  of  Servia  and  Wallachia. 
The  consequent  attraction  of  Austria  to  the  federated 
Powers  changed  the  Triple  into  the  Quadruple  Alliance 
for  maintaining  the  Peace  of  Utrecht  and  guaranteeing- 

67 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

the  tranquillity  of  Europe.  By  this  great  compact  of 
1718,  the  emperor  abandoned  his  pretensions  to  the 
kingdom  of  Spain,  as  well  as  to  all  territories 
recognised  at  Utrecht  as  belonging  to  Spain.  He 
also  agreed  that,  on  the  death  of  their  reigning  princes, 
the  duchies  of  Placentia,  Parma  and  Tuscany  should 
pass  to  a  Spanish  prince,  Don  Carlos.  Persons 
bearing  this  name  have  appeared  so  often  upon  the 
stormy  stage  of  Spanish  politics,  that  it  may  be  as 
well  to  mention  that  the  Don  Carlos  now  spoken  of 
was  a  son  of  Philip  V.  of  Spain  by  a  second  wife  ;  after 
the  death  of  his  half-brother,  Ferdinand,  he  came  to 
the  throne  under  the  title  of  Charles  III.  The  only 
further  stipulation  on  these  points  enforced  by  the 
Quadruple  Alliance  was  that  Leghorn  should  be  a  free 
port,  and  that  in  no  event  should  the  crowns  of  the 
Italian  duchies  just  named  pass  to  the  sovereign  of 
Spain.  Swiss  garrisons  were  told  off,  at  the  charge  of 
the  contracting  Powers,  to  establish  Don  Carlos  in  his 
new  possessions.  At  the  same  time  Philip  V.  was  to 
renounce  his  pretensions,  not  only  to  the  duchy  of 
Milan,  but  to  the  two  Sicilies  and  to  the  Netherlands. 
The  arrangement  of  the  Quadruple  Alliance  was 
justly  considered  at  the  time,  and  deserves  to  be  looked 
back  upon,  as  a  monument  of  knowledge,  resourceful- 
ness, patience  and  skill  on  the  part  of  its  chief  English 
promoter,  Stanhope.  On  an  issue  of  Alberoni's  own 
choosing,  he  had  defeated  the  most  astute  of  Continental 
diplomatists.  After  the  death  of  the  Swedish  monarch, 
he  had  caused  the  collapse  of  the  Northern  confedera- 
tion against  England.  Stanhope's  most  dangerous 
opponents  were  not  his  professional  rivals  at  the 

council-board,  but  his  personal  maligners  belonging  to 

68 


Early  Hanoverian  Diplomacy 

the  German  faction  at  court.  He  also  had  enemies 
within  the  ranks  of  that  Whig  party  which  he  served 
so  well,  equally  abroad  and  at  home.  Sir  Robert 
Walpole  was  jealous  of  his  influence  with  George  I.  ; 
he  also  held  Stanhope  responsible  for  the  slackness  in 
pressing  on  Oxford's  impeachment.  Himself  essenti- 
ally a  cosmopolitan  by  experience  and  temper, 
Stanhope  was  always  too  much  occupied  with  foreign 
politics  to  play  a  very  active  part  in  faction  fights  or 
personal  rivalries  at  home.  In  his  successful  struggle 
with  Alberoni  his  only  allies  were  his  opponent's  follies 
and  blunders.  Alberoni's  absurdities,  conceit  and 
arrogance  secured  for  his  fall  an  outburst  of  delighted 
ridicule,  alike  from  the  court  and  the  entire  populace. 
No  weapon  was  too  small  or  mean  to  be  used  against 
lim  by  the  men  over  whose  heads  he  had  risen.  The 
hostility  of  the  French  regent,  of  Dubois  and  of 
Peterborough  was  reinforced  by  the  Spanish  king's 
confessor,  and  even  by  a  court  nurse.  Amid  the  crash 
of  his  ruin  and  exile,  the  cardinal's  cap  was  plucked 
from  his  head,  and  the  very  gates  of  Rome  were  closed 
against  him  by  Pope  Clement  XI. 

The  European  diplomacy  of  this  age  resembles  a 
theatre  whose  stage  is  crossed  and  recrossed  by  a 
succession  of  strange  personages,  each  newcomer  more 
grotesque  than  his  predecessor. 

The  Spanish  cardinal  was  followed  by  a  Dutch 
adventurer  who  had  taken  up  the  diplomatic  role  and 
who  became  a  duke.  This  was  Ripperda,  the  perfect 
type  of  a  class  generated  in  all  epochs,  under  various 
appearances,  by  the  forces  of  political  feverishness  and 
international  electricity.  By  birth  a  Dutchman,  by 

profession  an   adventurer,  he  had  through  Alberoni's 

69 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

influence  become  a  court  favourite  at  Madrid.  In 
1725  he  conducted  an  international  transaction  which 
was  to  change  the  entire  European  situation.  His 
title  of  "  Duke"  formed  the  reward  given  him  for  his 
secret  treaty  between  the  Emperor  Charles  VI.  and 
Philip  V.  of  Spain.  Thus,  at  least  for  a  time,  was 
closed  that  rivalry  between  two  monarchs  which  had 
distracted  Europe  not  less  seriously  than  had  the 
aggrandising  ambition  of  Louis  XIV.  This  compact 
also  recognised  the  Pragmatic  Sanction,  which  had 
been  fully  ratified  in  1725,  and  which  settled  the 
Austrian  succession  on  the  eldest  daughter  of  Charles 
VI.,  Maria  Theresa.  Ripperda's  personal  peculiarities, 
his  exaggerated  contempt  for  seriousness  of  conviction 
and  earnestness  of  purpose,  and  the  rapidity  with 
which  he  ran  the  gamut  of  religious  professions,  from 
Popery,  through  Protestantism  to  the  Moslemism  in 
which  he  died,  do  not  inspire  respect.  The  man 
himself  must  rank  among  the  great  international  forces 
of  his  time.  The  mere  mention  of  the  Pragmatic 
Sanction  and  Maria  Theresa  in  connection  with  his 
Franco- Spanish  treaty  of  1725  associates  him  with 
events  that  left  an  abiding  mark  on  the  international 
relationships  of  Europe. 

Stanhope,  as  has  been  seen,  had  for  his  Continental 
contemporary  Alberoni,  whom  he  overthrew  with  little 
encouragement  from  his  fellow- Whig,  Walpole.  In 
foreign  affairs,  Stanhope  and  Walpole,  his  successor, 
were  rivals,  often  occupied  with  the  same  set  of  inter- 
national problems.  With  Ripperda,  it  now  remained 
for  Walpole  himself  from  time  to  time  to  deal.  In 
foreign  politics  Walpole  was  the  first  statesman  on  the 
Whig  side  whose  sole  aim  was  to  keep  England  clear 

70 


Early  Hanoverian  Diplomacy 

of  external  entanglements.  The  earlier  international 
tradition  of  Toryism  had  thus  become  a  principle  of 
Whig  practice,  and  on  one  point,  at  least,  the  earliest 
of  the  Whig  Prime  Ministers  showed  his  agreement 
with  the  bitterest  of  his  Parliamentary  opponents, 
Bolingbroke. 

Ever-increasing  taxation  was  the  price  paid  by  the 
country  for  its   glories  in  war.     Even  Maryborough's 
victories  were  beginning  to  arouse  a  sense  of  satiety 
rather  than  of  proud  satisfaction.     Weariness  of  the 
war  naturally  implied  discontent  with  its  Whig  authors 
and  conductors.    The  incessant  demands  of  the  struggle 
on  the  national  resources  had  given  an  entirely  new 
influence  to  the  moneyed  classes,  those  who  drew  their 
income  from  the  Funds  or  from  other  investments,  and 
not  from  the  land.     Walpole's  conduct  of  our  inter- 
national relations  had  therefore,  for  its  chief  motive,  to 
restore  to  the  Whig  connection  those  whom  the  cost 
of  militarism  might  have  tempted  to  leave  it.     War 
expenditure  meant  a  land  tax  of  four  shillings.     That 
was  enough  to  make  the  territorial  class  the  desirers  of 
peace.     Walpole's   foreign    statesmanship    was    thus, 
after   the   usual    English   fashion,  determined   by  the 
necessity  of  strengthening  the  position  of  himself  and 
his  party  at   home.     Walpole,  indeed,  was  now  bent 
upon  beating  Bolingbroke  not  only  at  his  own  game, 
but  with  his  own  tools.     The  ex-footman,  afterwards  a 
commissioner   of  plantations,  Arthur  More,   who  had 
helped  Bolingbroke   in  his   commercial  arrangements 
with  France  at  Utrecht,  was  no  sooner  out  of  work 
than  he  offered  his  services  to  Walpole.     They  were 
readily   accepted   and    promptly   utilised.       The    first 
speech  from  the  throne  ever  drafted  by  Walpole,  that 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

opening  the  session  of  1721,  promises  an  extension  of 
our  commerce  and  the  facilities  in  the  export  of  our 
own  manufactures,  as  well  as  in  introducing  the  articles 
used  in  preparing  them  for  the  market.  Walpole's 
negotiations  with  foreign  ministers  proved  so  successful 
that  before  Parliament  was  prorogued,  export  duties  on 
more  than  a  hundred  British  manufactures  had  been 
removed,  as  well  as  import  duties  on  nearly  forty  kinds 
of  raw  material. 

In  1723,  George  I.  asked  the  minister  to  find  him 
money  to  prevent  by  arms  the  Czar  from  deposing  the 
King  of  Sweden.  The  funds  were  indeed  forthcoming, 
but  only  because  the  minister  hoped  they  would  never 
be  wanted.  "  My  politics,"  he  said,  "are  to  keep  free 
from  all  engagements  as  long  as  we  possibly  can.'' 
Europe  had  seen  both  the  papacy  and  the  Empire  fail 
in  the  attempted  role  of  world-wide  peacemaker ;  for 
himself  Walpole  cherished  no  such  ideas  of  universal 
mediation.  Tranquillity  had  become  indispensable  for 
the  success  of  his  own  policy  and  for  the  national  well- 
being.  The  only  hope  of  securing  it  lay  in  practically 
perpetuating  the  tradition  of  Anglo-French  friendship, 
established  by  Elizabeth  in  her  co-operation  with 
Henry  IV.,  acted  upon  by  Cromwell  in  his  alliance 
with  Mazarin,  more  recently  reproduced  by  Stanhope 
in  his  dealings  with  Dubois  at  Hanover,  1716.  Thus 
came  about  Walpole's  alliance  with  Cardinal  Fleury, 
which  at  least  gave  the  world  ten  years  of,  not  indeed 
unbroken,  but  never  long  interrupted  peace.  Before 
the  understanding  between  the  French  cardinal  and 
the  English  minister  had  ripened  into  intimate  friend- 
ship, Fleury  constantly  said  that  he  had  never  seen  an 
Englishman  with  whom  it  was  so  delightful  to  do 

72 


Early  Hanoverian  Diplomacy 

business  as  Walpole.  The  English  and  the  French 
Prime  Ministers  were  fitted  by  nature  for  mutual  co- 
operation. Both  were  economists  with  a  strong  pre- 
disposition against  war.  Both  were  constitutionally 
tolerant  of  differences  of  opinion.  Both  distrusted 
extremes  and  believed  in  the  virtues  of  compromise. 
The  cordial  relations  of  the  two  men  were  much  pro- 
moted by  the  geniality  and  tact  of  the  English  ambas- 
sador in  Paris,  Sir  Robert's  brother,  old  Horace 
Walpole.  The  British  envoy  had  formed  the  true 
estimate  of  the  cardinal's  abilities.  When  therefore 
Fleury  fell  from  court  favour  for  a  short  time,  "  Old 
Horace  "  instead  of  slighting  him,  as  did  other  members 
of  the  diplomatic  circle,  became  more  conspicuously 
respectful  in  his  attentions  than  before.  The  British 
ambassador's  commanding  position  at  the  French  court 
was  recognised  at  home  by  giving  him  carte  blanche  in 
his  dealings  with  the  French  Government.  Hence  the 
smoothness  and  success  of  his  brother  Sir  Robert 
Walpole's  dealings  with  the  Paris  Foreign  Office. 

Sir  Robert  Walpole  himself  was  soon  to  profit  by 
the  result  of  his  brother's  well-judged  courtesy  to  the 
French  cardinal  during  the  short  season  of  his  former 
eclipse.  In  1727,  George  II.  on  his  accession  dis- 
missed Walpole,  and  for  forty-eight  hours  replaced  him 
by  Spencer  Compton,  afterwards  Lord  Wilmington. 
Queen  Caroline's  was  not  the  only  influence  exercised 
to  secure  Walpole's  prompt  return  to  power.  Cardinal 
Fleury  and  other  important  personages  in  Paris  repre- 
sented to  the  English  sovereign  the  danger  there  must 
be  to  the  Anglo-French  alliance  from  any  break  of 
continuity  in  the  relations  between  the  two  countries 
instituted  and  maintained  by  the  Whig  minister's  tact. 

73 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

The  movements  of  European  diplomacy,  in  which 
Walpole  was  to  take  his  part,  may  be  compared  to  the 
processes  of  weaving  and  unweaving  the  web  of  Pene- 
lope. Treaties  made  one  day  to  be  broken  the  next, 
alliances  concluded  only  to  be  dissolved,  a  bewildering 
series  of  shifting  combinations  of  Powers.  These  were 
the  phenomena  that  came  daily  under  his  eyes. 
Alberoni  had  fallen  not  to  rise  again ;  but  his  pupil 
Ripperda  remained  to  promote  any  European  move- 
ment unfavourable  to  England. 

The  prime  object  of  the  Austro- Spanish  alliance, 
the  establishment  of  a  Spanish  kingdom  in  Italy, 
formed  a  standing  threat  to  the  European  equilibrium. 
The  means  employed  to  secure  that  end  exemplified 
the  circumlocutory  and  mystifying  processes  of 
eighteenth-century  diplomacy.  The  policy  of  the 
Austro-Spanish  understanding,  expressed  in  the 
Treaty  of  Vienna  (1725),  joined  Austria  and  Spain 
against  Great  Britain.  The  stereotyped  routine 
was  followed.  Congresses  that  settled  nothing  were 
held  at  Cambrai,  Soissons  and  Aix-la-Chapelle  ;  but 
no  effective  counter-move  to  the  Vienna  treaty  was 
taken  till  Walpole  organised  the  threefold  compact 
uniting  England,  France  and  Prussia.  Stanhope  had 
been  willing  to  purchase  the  friendship  of  Spain  at  the 
cost  of  Gibraltar.  Alberoni  had  declined  the  over- 
ture. Gibraltar  became  the  object  of  periodical  attacks 
and  even  of  a  siege  by  Spain  ;  Walpole's  diplomacy  at 
Vienna  and  Austria's  failure  to  support  Spain  alone 
prevented  a  European  war. 

In  1729,  Walpole  combined  England,  France  and 
Spain  first  and  Holland  afterwards  in  a  defensive 
alliance,  the  Treaty  of  Seville.  This  arrangement 

74 


Early  Hanoverian  Diplomacy 

finally  set  at  rest  the  question  of  restoring  Gibraltar 
to  Spain,  and  composed  the  Anglo- Spanish  differences 
about  English  trade  across  the  Atlantic.  It  was 
seized  upon  by  the  Tories  and  malcontent  Whigs, 
under  Bolingbroke  and  Pulteney,  as  a  handle  for  attack- 
ing Walpole  on  the  ground  of  sacrificing  England's 
interests  to  gratify  German  feeling  and  to  further  his 
own  party  policy,  and  conniving  at  a  dangerous  friend- 
ship between  France  and  Spain.  The  Treaty  of  Seville 
was  confirmed  in  1731  by  the  second  Treaty  of  Vienna. 
This  provided,  more  explicitly  than  had  been  done  at 
Seville,  the  annulment  of  the  first  Treaty  of  Vienna  and 
pledged  its  signatories  to  abstain  from  any  action  that 
might  disturb  the  balance  of  power.  Three  years  later 
the  precarious  foundation  of  treaties  based  upon  artificial 
arrangements  of  territory,  regardless  of  national  feeling, 
merely  to  preserve  the  balance  of  power,  was  to  receive 
a  fresh  illustration.  In  1734,  but  for  Walpole's  sagacity 
and  firmness,  England  might  have  been  involved  in 
the  European  complications  arising  out  of  the  Polish 
succession.  In  the  hostilities  that  followed,  Austria 
found  herself  pitted  against  the  united  forces  of  France 
and  Spain.  In  his  firm  adherence  to  the  policy  of 
non-intervention,  Walpole  stood  between  two  fires  at 
home.  The  old  seventeenth-century  Whigs  denounced 
him  for  his  absolute  rupture  with  the  methods  originated 
by  William  III.  of  arming  everywhere  for  the  humili- 
ation of  France.  The  Tories  raised  the  cry  of  treachery 
to  British  prestige.  The  diplomacy,  however,  which 
neither  domestic  opposition  nor  foreign  intrigue  was 
suffered  to  interrupt,  proved  successful,  not  only  in 
keeping  England  out  of  the  hurly-burly,  but  in  pro- 
moting those  mediatorial  negotiations  which  in  October 

75 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

1735  resulted  in  the  great  treaty  known  as  the  Defini- 
tive Peace  of  Vienna.  By  this  instrument  Naples  and 
Sicily  remained  in  Spanish  hands,  Sardinia  received 
Novara  and  Tortona.  Lorraine  became  the  property 
of  France.  In  exchange  for  his  principality,  the  young 
Duke  of  Lorraine,  Francis,  betrothed  to  Maria  Theresa, 
accepted  Tuscany.  Thus  the  Bourbons  were  now 
established  in  Naples  as  well  as  in  Spain  and  France, 
and  a  close  connection  was  effected  between  Tuscany 
and  the  Austrian  Empire.  In  this  way  did  Walpole 
become  associated  with  the  extension  of  Bourbon  influ- 
ence, destined  afterwards  so  long  to  prove  the  source 
of  England's  deadliest  dangers.  To  counteract  and 
destroy  this  Bourbon  ascendancy  formed  the  task 
successfully  acomplished  by  the  elder  Pitt  when  the 
national  recognition  of  his  genius  and  patriotism  clothed 
him  with  a  power  and  placed  at  his  disposal  resources, 
diplomatic  and  military,  previously  unknown  in  the 
annals  of  English  statesmanship. 

In  its  relation  to  the  Bourbons,  Walpole's  diplomacy 
is  not  always  seen  to  as  much  advantage  as  in  the  case 
of  the  Definitive  Treaty  of  Vienna.  In  1733  had  come 
the  first  of  those  Family  Compacts  which,  renewed  in 
1743  and  in  1761,  sealed  a  conspiracy  of  the  Bourbons 
against  the  rest  of  Europe,  with  the  special  object  of 
humiliating  and  weakening  England.  These  under- 
standings— " pactes  de  lafamille  "-—to  call  them  by  their 
official  name,  were  made  in  secret  and  were  surrounded 
with  an  air  of  mystery.  Their  existence,  however, 
was  certainly  more  than  suspected  by  Continental 
diplomatists ;  it  was  mentioned  in  the  Duke  of 
Newcastle's  correspondence.  Walpole  therefore  may 

have  had  some  idea  of  what  was  going  forward,  though^ 

76 


Early  Hanoverian  Diplomacy 

as  he  might  have  said  and  himself  believed,  an  idea 
not  definite  enough  or  sufficiently  substantiated  by 
facts  to  justify  him  in  making  it  the  basis  of  his  policy. 
The  earliest  of  these  compacts,  that  of  1733,  with 
which  alone  we  now  have  to  do,  committed  the  French 
and  Spanish  monarchies  to  defend  Don  Carlos,  the 
son  of  Philip  V.  of  Spain  by  his  second  wife,  Elizabeth 
of  Parma,  against  the  emperor  and  England,  as  well 
as  to  combine  attacks  upon  English  commerce  every- 
where and  to  watch  an  opportunity  for  restoring 
Gibraltar  from  its  English  occupants  to  its  Spanish 
owners.  However  successfully  the  secrecy  of  the 
anti-English  concert  was  maintained,  the  evidence 
of  actual  events  must  have  shown  a  diplomatist,  far 
less  vigilant  and  well  informed  than  Walpole,  that  far- 
reaching  mischief  was  intended  against  England.  The 
public  as  well  as  the  chanceries  of  the  Continent  asked 
why  the  French  navy  should  be  placed  upon  a  war 
footing.  In  Spanish  waters  the  outrages  upon 
English  ships  and  sailors  brought  the  flag  and  name 
of  Great  Britain  into  daily  contempt.  The  English 
smugglers  may  have  been  troublesome.  The  brutality 
of  the  Spanish  reprisals  was  out  of  all  proportion 
to  the  offence.  The  climax  was  reached  in  the  well- 
known  episode  of  Jenkins'  ear.  The  militant  patriotism 
ran  high,  not  only  in  Parliament  and  in  the  country,  but 
at  court,  and  the  Duke  of  Newcastle  began  to  outbid 
Walpole  by  favouring  the  war  party.  Walpole  himself, 
however,  persevered  doggedly  with  his  diplomacy ; 
he  succeeded  in  securing  the  agreement  of  Spain  to  a 
convention  for  restoring  the  treasure  and  the  sailors 
made  prisoners  on  English  ships. 

The  Parliamentary  debates  on  this  convention  are 

77 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

noticeable  in  the  present  context,  because  they  brought 
forward  for  the  first  time  the  statesman  who  was  to 
redeem  English  diplomacy  and  English  honour  from 
the  disgrace  attributed  by  the  patriots  to  Walpole's 
pusillanimity.  The  future  Chatham  led  the  attack 
upon  the  English  minister  for  having  accepted  from 
Spain  money  compensation  scandalously  inadequate  to 
the  injuries  committed.  To  no  purpose  did  Walpole, 
in  and  out  of  Parliament,  endeavour  to  arrest  hostilities 
by  emphasising  a  diplomatic  formula  which  was  then 
heard  for  the  first  time,  but  has  since  become  a 
commonplace.  "  Before,"  he  said,  "  we  can  prudently 
declare  war,  we  must  know  the  whole  system  of 
European  affairs  at  the  present  moment ;  we  must 
also  know  what  allies  our  enemies  may  have  and  what 
help  we  may  expect  from  our  friends." 

The  intense  and  universal  passion  of  the  moment 
overwhelmed  all  considerations  of  prudence.  Instead  of 
resigning,  as  more  wisely  and  honourably  he  might  have 
done,  Walpole  yielded  to  the  royal  and  popular  wish  by 
declaring  war  with  Spain,  October  1739.  When  the 
military  passions  of  a  people  become  strongly  excited, 
diplomacy  lends  itself  as  readily  to  the  purposes  of  the 
war  party  as,  in  more  tranquil  times,  to  the  cause  of  peace. 
So  was  it  now.  So  was  it  to  prove  in  the  next  century 
when  the  younger  Pitt  drifted  into  hostilities  with 
France,  and  so  again  when  another  peace  minister,  Lord 
Aberdeen,  invaded  the  Crimea.  Fleury,  who  a  little 
before  had  offered  Walpole  his  services  as  mediator 
with  Spain,  ceased  to  disguise  his  sympathy  with  the 
enemies  of  England,  and  made  overtures  to  the 
Jacobites ;  he  even  promised  military  support  for  a 
Stuart  restoration. 

78 


Early  Hanoverian  Diplomacy 

Amid  the  political  defeats  at  home  following 
these  diplomatic  failures  abroad,  Walpole's  career 
closed.  He  had  been  the  first  great  Whig  minister 
to  attempt  a  systematic  reversal  of  the  principle  of 
military  intervention  in  European  affairs  which  the 
Whigs  had  adopted  from  William  III.  He  had,  how- 
ever, done  more  than  this.  He  had  made  the  cabinet 
the  executive  committee  of  the  House  of  Commons  ; 
it  followed  therefore  that  the  foreign  policy  of  the 
country  had  ceased  chiefly  or  necessarily  to  reflect 
the  ideas  and  wishes  of  the  sovereign.  No  longer  the 
exclusive  product  of  courts  or  chanceries,  it  began, 
like  legislation  itself,  to  bear  the  trade-mark  of  Parlia- 
mentary manufacture.  Before,  therefore,  the  middle 
of  the  eighteenth  century  there  had  opened  the  popular 
era  in  the  narrative  of  our  international  statesman- 
ship. The  European  system  of  the  Middle  Ages  was 
not  indeed  yet  broken  up.  The  European  equilibrium 
still  implied  a  balance  of  kings  and  courts  rather  than 
of  peoples.  The  principle  of  nationality  systematically 
ignored  by  the  Utrecht  settlement  had  still  to  become  an 
inspiring  idea  of  diplomacy.  Walpole,  however,  did 
something  to  introduce  the  notion  to  the  public  mind. 

Before  passing  to  the  relations  between  his  work  and 
that  of  his  successors,  something  must  be  said  of  his 
connection  with  the  development  of  Bourbonism,  the 
shape  it  was  assuming  and  the  attention  it  was  exciting 
in  1733.  In  ^at  year  Lord  Carteret  and  Townshend 
as  Secretaries  of  State  were  subordinately  responsible 
for  foreign  affairs,  but  the  Prime  Minister  decisively 
shaped  policy  abroad  as  well  as  at  home.  Had 
Walpole  then  learned  of  the  earliest  arrangement  be- 
tween the  French  and  Spanish  Bourbons?  If  he  had, 

79 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

his  persistence  with  pacific  negotiations,  foredoomed, 
as  he  must  have  been  aware,  to  certain  failure,  was 
without  excuse.  The  chief  argument  in  favour  of  the 
1733  compact  not  having  been  known  to  the  minister, 
as  stated  by  Professor  Seeley,*  is  that  the  later  agree- 
ments (1743  and  1761)  took  the  world  by  surprise. 
Against  this  there  is  now  evidence  to  show  that, 
its  secrecy  notwithstanding,  the  earliest  of  the 
compacts  was  certainly  known  to  some  of  Walpole's 
colleagues,  especially  the  Duke  of  Newcastle,  then 
Lord  Chamberlain.  The  Newcastle  correspondence, 
summarised  by  an  expert  in  this  subject  in  the 
Quarterly  Review  (vol.  380,  p.  346),  has  disclosed  the 
existence  of  a  certain  "  One-hundred-and-one."  This 
mysterious  entity,  who  in  the  flesh  was  a  lady,  proud 
of  her  unimpeachable  respectability,  and  expecting  to 
be  paid  proportionately,  constantly  recurs  to  stipu- 
lations which  have  just  been  agreed  upon  between 
France  and  Spain.  Further  details,  she  adds,  will  be 
sent  when  more  money  is  received.  These,  the  duke 
may  rest  assured,  will  only  confirm  previous  accounts  of 
the  danger  threatened  by  "the  project  to  the  House 
of  Hanover  and  the  whole  empire  of  George  II." 
The  later  developments  of —  to  adopt  "  One-hundred- 
and-one's  "  euphemism — "the  project,"  under  the  shapes 
in  which  it  reappeared  or  was  continued  during  the 
greatest  foreign  ministry  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
that  of  the  elder  Pitt,  will  receive  minute  notice  in 
their  proper  place.  Meanwhile  I  pass  on  to  those 
controllers  of  England's  external  relations  who  more 
immediately  followed  Walpole,  and  to  those  points  at 

*  "The  House  of  Bourbon,"  by  J,  R.    Seeley,  English  Historical 
Review,  vol.  i.  1887. 

80 


Early  Hanoverian  Diplomacy 

which  they  were  brought  into  active  relations  with  the 
European  situations  of  their  periods. 

Two  years  before  Walpole's  retirement  died  the 
Emperor  Charles  VI.  Foreseeing  his  end,  he  had 
taken  the  step  intended  to  ensure  the  fulfilment  of  his 
fondest  wish  by  gaining  the  consent  of  Europe  to  the 
Pragmatic  Sanction ;  this  was  accepted  both  by 
England  and  France ;  nor  at  the  time  did  any 
European  state  refuse  its  signature,  except  Bavaria. 
In  1740,  Maria  Theresa,  as  Queen  of  Hungary, 
quietly  succeeded  to  her  father's  dominions. 

The  first  blow  at  the  agreement,  however,  pro- 
ceeded from  an  unexpected  quarter.  The  great 
Frederick  of  Prussia  had  long  resented  the  loss  of 
the  Juliers  and  Berg  duchies ;  he  now  made  his 
signature  of  the  Pragmatic  Sanction  conditional  on 
their  restoration  ;  he  emphasised  his  claim  by  seizing 
Silesia,  at  the  same  time  protesting  that  he  had  no 
wish  to  quarrel  with  Austria.  It  had  already  become 
a  maxim  of  French  diplomacy  to  miss  no  opportunity 
of  acquiring  influence  in  Germany.  The  King  of 
France,  Louis  XV.,  therefore  welcomed  the  oppor- 
tunity of  now  concluding  a  secret  treaty  with  the 
Prussian  monarch.  Walpole,  who  lived  till  1745,  had 
foreseen  the  danger  to  the  peace  of  the  world 
threatened  by  a  possible  collision  between  the  militant 
Prussian  monarch  and  the  young  Austrian  queen. 
He  had  therefore  advised  timely  Austrian  concessions 
to  the  new  Prussian  crown. 

By  this  time,  however,  influences  very  differ- 
ent from  those  sedulously  fostered  by  Walpole 
were  in  the  ascendant  with  the  English  court, 

Parliament   and    people.      George    II.,    flushed   with 
F  81 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

military  ambition,  had  always  desired  to  pose  as  the 
armed  champion  of  the  late  emperor's  heiress ;  he 
had  more  than  once  asked,  or  talked  of  asking, 
Parliament  for  money  to  support  her  in  the  field. 
The  belligerent  humour  of  the  English  king  was  now 
to  be  gratified  by  the  foreign  statesmanship  of  a  great 
minister  whose  temper  was  as  warlike  as  the 
sovereign's — Carteret.  This  was  the  remarkable  man 
whose  death,  when  it  came,  made  Chesterfield  exclaim, 
"There  goes,  take  him  for  all  in  all,  the  best  brains 
in  England."  In  his  political  methods  and  ideas  of 
home  and  foreign  statesmanship,  Carteret  presented 
a  contrast  not  less  complete  than  in  his  person  and 
deportment  to  Walpole.  To  knock  the  heads  of  the 
kings  of  Europe  together  and  jumble  something  out 
that  may  be  of  service  to  this  country  was,  as  Mr 
Morley  has  well  put  it,  his  dominating  ambition. 
(Walpole,  p.  28.)  He  first  came  into  favour  with 
George  I.  because  he  was  the  only  public  man  of  the 
day  who  could  speak  the  king's  native  language. 
"  Fancy,"  said  the  adroit  courtier  to  his  sovereign, 
"a  gentleman  not  knowing  German!"  From  being 
the  rival  of  Walpole  in  the  first  Hanoverian  reign, 
Carteret  became  the  most  formidable  of  Newcastle's 
competitors  in  the  second.  With  more,  or  at  least 
with  something,  of  moral  ballast,  Carteret  would  have 
been  as  great  in  politics  as  he  was  accomplished  in 
scholarship.  As  it  was,  the  intricacies  of  foreign 
affairs  in  his  day  exactly  suited  his  tastes  and  powers. 
He  regarded  them  as  a  game  in  which  he  could  give 
the  ordinary  player  points  and  maintain  his  lead  from 
the  opening  to  the  finish.  Trained  by  Stanhope  and 
Sunderland,  he  knew,  as  few  of  his  contemporaries 

82 


Early  Hanoverian  Diplomacy 

did,  not  only  the  details  of  every  foreign  question,  but 
the  nature  of  the  unseen  forces  to  be  considered  in 
dealing  with  it.  Sufficiently  loyal  as  a  subordinate, 
he  no  sooner  found  himself  a  principal  than  he  treated 
with  contempt  all  obligations  of  party  and  all  scruples 
of  patriotism.  Once  he  had  established  himself  in 
office,  he  knew  no  other  object  than  to  remain  there 
on  the  terms  most  profitable  or  pleasant  to  himself, 
and  most  likely  to  ingratiate  him  with  the  sovereign 
and  the  public.  Not  less  self-conscious  than  he  was 
capable,  he  always  asked  himself  what  posterity  would 
be  likely  to  think  of  any  particular  coup,  as  well  as 
what  momentary  effect  it  would  produce.  The  fame 
and  the  very  names  of  kings  outlive  the  reputa- 
tion of  subjects.  Therefore  his  first  maxim  was  to 
show  himself  in  sympathy  with  the  court :  once 
delight  the  boxes,  the  applause  of  the  gallery  will 
follow.  Carteret's  natural  turn  for  diplomacy  showed 
itself  even  in  his  personal  , dealings  with  George  II. 
"  Recollect,"  said  the  fiery  little  king,  "  I  am  all  for 
Maria  Theresa  and  the  Austrian  alliance."  "  Your 
Majesty,"  replied  the  minister,  "does  but  follow  the 
tradition  of  the  greatest  foreign  statesman  among  your 
royal  predecessors,  Henry  VIII.,  who  was  the  first  to 
see  in  Austria  the  true  English  make- weight  to  France." 
The  spring  of  1741  produced  events  that  fixed  un- 
alterably the  English  line  in  the  Seven  Years'  War. 
Frederick's  victory  at  Mollwitz  made  France  side 
with  the  conqueror.  The  Franco- Prussian  Treaty  of 
Nymphenberg  pledged  the  two  Powers  to  promote 
the  Bavarian  Elector's  succession  to  the  Imperial 
crown.  The  eighteenth  -  century  precursor  of  the 
4 'spirited  diplomacy"  of  our  own  day,  Carteret,  in 

83 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

1 742,  successfully  urged  the  timely  wisdom  of  pacific 
surrender  upon  a  martial  queen.  The  English 
court  had  for  some  time  used  its  influence  with 
Maria  Theresa  to  secure  her  cession  of  Silesia  to 
Frederick.  The  Franco- Prussian  compact  of  Nym- 
phenberg  stimulated  Carteret  to  action.  From  1730  to 
1748,  England  was  represented  at  Vienna  by  a  York- 
shire baronet,  Sir  Thomas  Robinson.  For  that  work 
he  had  been  trained  in  our  Paris  Embassy.  His  zeal 
in  negotiating  between  Maria  Theresa  and  Frederick 
the  Great  secured  him  the  nickname  of  "  L'Infatigable 
Robinson."  His  industry  and  skill  enabled  Carteret 
to  convert  the  Austrian  empress  to  the  English  views. 
In  1742,  by  the  Treaty  of  Breslau,  she  made  Silesia 
over  to  Frederick.  Twelve  years  later  Robinson  was 
to  prove  less  successful.  His  failure  to  obtain  Maria 
Theresa's  consent  to  a  general  pacification  caused  his 
recall  in  1754,  when,  as  the  Duke  of  Newcastle's 
colleague,  he  went  into  the  House  of  Commons.  The 
Breslau  treaty  was  not  only  Carteret's  most  important 
work,  it  was  also  his  last.  Having  by  his  mother's 
death  become  Lord  Granville,  he  resigned  in  1744. 
The  Pelham  ascendancy  which  followed  this  event 
gave,  as  some  thought,  a  promise  of  peace,  but  without 
its  fulfilment. 

In  France  Fleury  was  now  dead  ;  his  successor, 
Cardinal  Tencin,  proved  more  vehemently  anti- 
English  than  had  been  Belleisle  himself.  Tencin's 
open  encouragement  to  the  young  Pretender,  Charles 
Edward,  culminated  (March  1745)  in  the  declaration 
by  France  of  war  against  England.  A  few  weeks 
later  France  added  Austria  to  the  list  of  her  avowed 

enemies.     The  struggle   originating   in  the  Austrian 

84 


Early  Hanoverian  Diplomacy 

succession,  like  the  Seven  Years'  War  into  which  that 
contest  merged  by  degrees  almost  imperceptible, 
belongs  to  the  general  history  of  the  time.  British 
diplomacy  did  not  remain  an  idle  spectator  of  the  con- 
fused and  sanguinary  engagements  between  the 
Prussian,  Bavarian  and  Austrian  troops,  suspended 
rather  than  terminated  as  these  had  been  by  the 
Austro- Bavarian  Treaty  of  Fuessen  and  the  Anglo- 
Prussian  Treaty  of  Hanover.  The  Fuessen  Treaty  had 
established  Maria  Theresa's  husband,  Francis,  on  the 
Imperial  throne.  By  the  Treaty  of  Hanover, 
Frederick  promised  England  to  accept  Francis  I.  as 
emperor,  but  only  on  the  condition  of  Silesia 
remaining  a  part  of  the  Prussian  kingdom. 
Robinson's  persuasive  powers  were  for  some  time 
spent  in  vain  on  the  Austrian  empress.  At  last  the 
British  ambassador  succeeded,  and  the  Austrian 
acceptance  of  these  terms  was  embodied  in  the  Treaty 
of  Dresden,  1745.  From  the  first  it  had  been  evident 
that  the  primary  condition,  the  "idem  velle  et  nolle" 
of  international  friendship,  had  been  wanting  to  the 
Anglo-Austrian  relations.  Nor  do  these  seem  to  have 
been  improved  by  the  men  into  whose  hands  their 
management  had  fallen.  Robert  D'Arcy,  fourth  Earl 
of  Holdernesse,  as  Secretary  of  State,  stood  high  in 
Newcastle's  opinion,  but  his  character  was  traversed 
by  a  vein  of  frivolity,  shown,  as  his  opponents  de- 
clared, by  the  fact  that,  when  as  a  younger  man  he 
ought  to  have  been  a  student  of  politics,  he  thought  of 
nothing  but  private  theatricals.  How,  it  was  asked, 
could  such  a  man,  bred  behind  the  curtain,  keep  an 
official  secret  or  be  trusted  in  anything  more  serious 
than  the  business  of  stage-management  ?  Moreover, 

85 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

Robert  Keith — who,  in  1748,  had  succeeded  Robinson 
at  Vienna — another  of  Newcastle's  friends,  was  with- 
out the  tact  and  energy  shown  by  his  predecessor  in 
dealing  with  Maria  Theresa ;  he  weakened  rather 
than  strengthened  the  hold  of  her  English  friends 
upon  the  wavering  loyalty  of  the  empress. 

Nor  did  Maria  Theresa  at  any  time  underrate  the 
two  definite  and  practical  reasons  she  had  for  regard- 
ing the  English  alliance  as  unlikely  to  stand  any 
severe  strain.  The  Hanoverian  court  of  England 
was  secretly  if  not  openly  Prussian  in  its  sympathies. 
The  statesmanship  and  sentiment  of  England,  she  also 
knew,  only  valued  Austria  as  an  instrument  for  pro- 
moting the  paramount  object  of  English  policy,  the 
overthrow  of  the  Bourbons.  In  1756  the  Austrian 
ruler's  suspicions  received  a  most  dramatic  and  unex- 
pected justification.  There  was,  and  for  some  time 
had  been,  an  understanding — secret,  of  course,  after  the 
manner  of  the  time — between  England  and  Prussia. 
It  took  the  shape  of  the  Anglo- Prussian  Treaty  of 
Westminster  (January  1756).  As  a  natural  check  to 
this  move — thought  by  some  to  have  been  the  sug- 
gestion of  Henry  Fox,  then  Secretary  of  State — Austria 
and  France  now  engaged  in  a  little  business  of  the 
same  kind  on  their  own  account.  The  Franco- 
Prussian  entente  had  for  some  time  ceased  to  be 
operative.  Louis  XV.  never  forgave  what  he  called 
the  personal  discourtesy  of  the  great  Frederick.  He 
now  eagerly  welcomed  an  ally  of  better  manners  if  not 
of  equal  strength.  The  country-house  of  the  French 
Foreign  Minister,  Rouille",  witnessed  the  final  execution 
of  the  Franco-Austrian  counter-move  to  the  stroke 
dealt  by  "  perfidious  Albion  "  in  the  Westminster  treaty. 

86 


Early  Hanoverian  Diplomacy 

Maria  Theresa's  greatest  minister,  Kaunitz,  once 
described  England  as  Austria's  natural  friend,  France 
as  her  natural  enemy.  In  1756,  however,  Kaunitz  was 
immensely  popular  in  Paris,  and  the  chief  promoter  of 
the  diplomatic  instrument,  by  way  of  answer  to  the 
Westminster  League,  forthcoming  from  Versailles. 
The  Treaty  of  Versailles,  concluded  in  the  May  of 
1756,  was  the  product  of  the  secret  forces  now  direct- 
ing French  diplomacy.  The  conscience  of  Louis  XV. 
was  in  the  keeping  of  the  Abbe  Bernis  ;  Madame  de 
Pompadour  was  the  royal  mistress.  The  churchman 
and  the  concubine,  combining  their  different  kinds  of 
ascendancy  to  a  common  end,  secured  the  king's 
consent  to  terms  between  the  two  countries  by  which 
Austria  for  the  present  was  to  remain  inactive,  and 
France  not  to  involve  other  Powers  in  war,  and  above 
all  things  not  to  invade  the  Netherlands. 

Of  the  two  French  signatories  of  the  Treaty  of  Ver- 
sailles, Rouille  was  the  Foreign  Minister  ;  his  colleague's 
full  name  was  Francois  Joacim  de  Pierres  Bernis.  The 
latter,  the  idol  of  fashionable  Europe,  had  made  a  brilliant 
beginning  at  the  Venice  Embassy  in  1740,  and,  though 
more  than  once  officially  disgraced,  remained  till  his 
death,  in  1794,  the  most  popular  of  ambassadors  in 
Europe,  and  not  the  least  successful  of  diplomatists. 
Keith,  now  British  ambassador  at  Vienna,  obtained 
an  early  interview  with  Maria  Theresa.  Why,  he 
reproachfully  asked,  had  she  deserted  England? 
Why,  was  the  further  enquiry  that  met  this  question, 
had  the  ministers  of  George  II.  forced  on  her  the 
surrender  of  Glatz  and  Silesia?  It  now  remained  for 
English  diplomacy  to  secure  its  ends  by  the  use  of 
English  gold.  Heavy  bribes  from  Whitehall  to  the 

87 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

Russian  Government  at  St  Petersburg  and  to  their 
ambassador  in  London,  Bestuchoff,  secured  the 
accession  of  the  Czarina  Elizabeth,  Peter  the  Great's 
daughter,  to  the  Treaty  of  Westminster. 

We  have  now  (1756)  reached  the  period  of  the  Seven 
Years'  War.  The  preoccupation  of  Europe  with  this 
contest  was  the  elder  Pitt's  opportunity  for  creating  or 
establishing  the  modern  empire  of  Great  Britain.  This 
therefore  is  the  place  in  which  briefly  to  explain  the 
leading  features  of  the  European  situation  so  far  as  it 
concerns  the  foreign  policy  of  England. 

The  Western  world  had  divided  itself  between  the 
support  of  England  or  France.  It  was,  in  fact,  a  duel 
between  those  two  Powers.  At  the  same  time  the  re- 
sponsibilities in  which  the  treaty  system  of  Europe  had 
involved  the  neighbouring  states  made  it  impossible  that 
the  struggle  should  be  confined  to  the  two  competitors 
for  supremacy.  The  tradition  of  English  diplomatic 
ascendancy,  established  by  Robinson  at  Vienna,  had 
proved  too  weak  for  the  skill  and  resources  of  French 
statesmanship.  Nor  ought  Robinson's  colleagues,  suc- 
cessors or  employers  to  have  been  surprised  by  Maria 
Theresa's  exchange  of  an  English  for  a  French  alliance. 
Nothing  but  tact  on  Robinson's  part  amounting  to 
genius  kept  the  empress  from  breaking  with  England 
after  the  Pelhams  had  forced  on  her  the  surrender  of 
Silesia ;  and,  though  he  nominally  occupied  the 
embassy  till  1763,  Robinson,  between  1748  and  1756, 
seems  to  have  been  mostly  absent  from  the  Austrian 
court.  Between  the  "  Devil "  of  Prussia  and  the 
"  deep  sea "  of  Turkey,  Maria  Theresa  had  been 
driven  by  the  diplomatic  remissness  of  her  English 

ally  into  the  Versailles  treaty  with  Louis  XV. 

88 


Early  Hanoverian  Diplomacy 

The  Seven  Years'  War,  as  a  European  episode, 
consisted  of  military  operations  in  Germany,  which, 
belonging  to  general  history,  need  not  be  recapitulated 
here.  While  it  was  in  progress,  the  elder  Pitt  began  to 
make  himself  necessary  to  the  English  administrations 
that  were  closely  following  the  Continental  struggle. 
At  first  the  policy  in  regard  to  it  which  he  advocated  for 
England  was  an  adherence  to  those  traditions  of  non- 
intervention, declared  by  Bolingbroke  to  be  the 
foundation  of  Toryism,  during  the  wars  ending  in  the 
Peace  of  Utrecht.  As  time  passed  on,  Pitt  saw  more 
and  more  clearly  that  in  establishing  her  empire,  the 
one  enemy  with  whom  England  had  to  reckon  was 
France ;  he  therefore  entirely  changed  his  attitude 
towards  the  combatants  in  Germany.  To  assist 
Frederick  of  Prussia  in  occupying  the  French  arms  in 
Europe  was  to  withdraw  France  from  her  aggressive 
enterprises  in  Hindustan  and  across  the  Atlantic ;  he 
was  thus,  to  adapt  his  own  phrase,  literally  "  winning 
for  England,  America  in  Germany."  With  the  course 
of  conquest  that  formed  the  fulfilment  of  these  words 
we  are  not  here  concerned.  The  diplomatic  incidents 
that  it  originated,  and  the  diplomatic  methods  adopted 
by  Pitt  for  the  achievement  of  his  Imperial  aims, 
afford  material  for  a  new  chapter. 


89 


CHAPTER  V 

CHATHAM  I    HIS    WORK   AND    ITS    RESULTS 

The  Departmental  arrangement  at  the  time  of  the  elder  Pitt — Its 
disadvantages,  and  abuses  —  The  case  of  Carteret  and 
Townshend — Sir  Luke  Schaub — The  elder  Horace  Walpole — 
The  Duke  of  Newcastle  and  Lord  Harrington — The  unsatis- 
factory state  of  the  British  Embassies — Abraham  Stanyan — 
Lord  Kinnoull — Benjamin  Keene — Robert  D'Arcy,  fourth  Earl 
of  Holdernesse — William  Capel,  third  Earl  of  Essex — James, 
first  Earl  Waldegrave — Chatham's  diplomacy — His  use  of 
Parliament — His  oratory — The  Family  Compact  of  1761 — 
Chatham's  knowledge  derived  from  secret  agents — Richard 
Wall,  the  Spanish  Foreign  Minister — Duten's  information  from 
Turin — Chatham's  resignation — Hans  Stanley,  the  English 
Ambassador  at  Paris — The  Peace  of  Paris,  1763 — Chatham's 
attempted  Protestant  Alliance — The  American  War — The 
founding  of  the  Foreign  Office,  1782. 

PITT'S  triumphs  in  international  statesmanship 
were  won  during  the  period  of  the  Seven  Years' 
War  (1757-63),  and  in  the  teeth  of  official  difficulties 
and  disorganisation  which  were  then  reaching  a  pitch 
so  intolerable  as  to  necessitate,  four  years  after  his 
death,  an  attempt  to  secure  something  like  method 
and  discipline  in  administration  by  forming  a  new  and 
distinct  department  of  State  for  the  conduct  of  our 
foreign  affairs.  The  obsolete  machinery  existing  for  a 
Foreign  Minister  throughout  Pitt's  time  was  supplied 
by  the  already  mentioned  Northern  and  Southern 
Departments,  both  domiciled  either  at  the  Cock-pit, 
Whitehall,  or  at  Cleveland  Row,  St  James's.  This  two- 
fold division  had  been  made  when  the  king's  secretarial 

90 


Chatham :   His  Work  and  its  Results 

business  began  to  be  too  heavy  for  a  single  servant. 
The  appointment,  however,  of  a  second  Secretary  of 
State  under  Henry  VIII.  did  not  make  either  of  the 
two  less  the  creature  of  the  court.  Both  were  to  the 
last  practically  untouched  by  any  new  doctrine  of 
responsibility  to  Parliament.  Throughout  the  Tudor 
period,  perhaps  long  afterwards,  the  question  of 
priority  between  the  two  was  practically  settled  by  the 
temporary  importance  of  the  work  done  in  each  of  the 
departments,  and  on  the  ability  of  the  men  who  did 
it.*  Theoretically  their  duties  and  dignity  may  have 
been  equal.  Cases  like  those  of  Stanhope  and 
Carteret  show  that  the  course  of  events  at  home  and 
abroad  conspired  with  the  natural  adaptabilities  of  the 
man  himself  generally  to  make  one  of  the  chiefs  of 
the  two  departments  practically  Foreign  Secretary,  if 
not  Prime  Minister  as  well.  When  the  Secretaries 
began  to  be  responsible  to  Parliament  rather  than  to 
a  king,  their  importance  increased,  but  the  old  division 
of  duties  proved  inconvenient.  Many  of  the  blunders 
that  confused  and  miscarried  English  diplomacy  in  its 
eighteenth-century  relations  with  Louis  XV.,  Maria 
Theresa  and  Frederick  the  Great,  may  be  directly 
traced  to  the  obsolete  dual  arrangement.  It  was, 
to  quote  Lord  John  Russell's  description,  as  if  "  two 
coachmen  were  on  the  box  of  a  mail-coach,  one  hold- 
ing the  right-hand  rein  and  the  other  the  left."  The 
period  which  closed  with  the  supremacy  of  the  elder 
Pitt  had  been  marked  by  intrigues  and  counter- 
intrigues  between  the  two  Secretaries  of  State,  that 

*  On  this  subject  see  The  Public  Records  and  the  Constitution^  a 
lecture  delivered  at  All  Souls,  Oxford,  by  Mr  Luke  Own  Pike,  who 
favours  the  idea  of  the  Foreign  Office  having  specifically  grown  out  of 
the  Northern  Secretaryship. 

91 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

alternately  agitated  and  paralysed  our  diplomacy ; 
during  a  quarter  of  a  century.  The  plots  and  counter- 
plots of  English  ministers  reflected  in  miniature  the 
duplicity  and  overreaching  that,  on  a  larger  scale, 
has  been  seen  to  characterise  the  relations  of  the 
Austrian,  the  English,  the  French  and  the  Prussian 
cabinets  and  courts. 

During  the  second  decade  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  Carteret  and  Townshend,  both  of  them 
Secretaries  of  State  under  Walpole,  were  competitors 
for  the  conduct  of  our  foreign  policy.  The  royal 
favour,  the  essential  preliminary  to  the  achievement  of 
that  ambition,  could  only  or  most  easily  be  secured  by 
the  good  offices  of  one  of  the  royal  mistresses.  The 
Duchess  of  Kendal  promised  to  be  the  most  amenable 
to  the  necessary  pressure  ;  she  had  already  been  in 
the  pay  of  Bolingbroke  ;  to  her  therefore,  as  to  the 
most  useful  ally  in  his  diplomatic  projects,  Carteret 
addressed  himself.  Speaking  of  the  stateswomen  who 
make  international  politics  their  metier,  Walpole  had 
said  that  he  knew  of  only  one  who  would  not  take 
money,  and  she  took  diamonds.  The  Duchess  of 
Kendal  had  a  soul  above  either  gold  or  jewels,  but 
sighed  for  the  ennoblement  of  her  kindred.  Carteret 
and  Townshend  so  hated  and  distrusted  each  other 
that  neither  of  them  would  let  George  I.  be  out  of  his 
sight  a  moment.  When,  therefore,  their  sovereign  went 
to  Hanover,  both  these  ministers  insisted  on  accompany- 
ing him.  The  absence  of  the  two  was  the  secret  of  the 
diplomatic  successes  already  related  of  the  home-staying 
Walpole.  Carteret  was  now  to  discover  the  price  fixed 
by  the  chief  court  concubine  for  her  assistance. 

Her  Grace  of  Kendal's  niece — probably  a  synonym 

92 


Chatham  :   His  Work  and  its  Results 

for  daughter — was  the  bride  elect  of  the  son  of  La 
Vrilliere,  the  French  Secretary  of  State.  As  a  con- 
dition of  the  marriage,  the  young  lady's  friends  in- 
sisted that  the  bridegroom  should  be  made  a  duke  by 
Louis  XV.  ;  the  influence  of  the  English  court,  it  was 
assumed,  might  successfully  be  exercised  to  that  end. 
George  I.  approved  of  the  match.  Carteret  resolved 
to  buy  his  monarch's  mistress  by  using  his  influence 
at  the  French  court  to  gratify  her  whim.  England 
then  had  for  its  ambassador  at  Paris  a  certain  Sir 
Luke  Schaub,  a  native  of  Switzerland,  and  a  standing 
illustration  of  the  truth  of  the  French  proverb,  "pas 
d?  argent,  pas  de  Suisse"  This  diplomatist  had  already 
been  heavily  fee'd  by  Townshend  to  counteract  the 
policy  of  Walpole  and  Carteret ;  he  now  took  Carteret's 
money  to  obtain  for  the  bridegroom  elect  the  title 
stipulated  for  by  the  young  lady's  relatives.  Schaub, 
having  betrayed  his  original  purchaser,  Townshend, 
really  exerted  himself  to  earn  the  money  paid  by  his 
second  buyer,  Carteret.  Townshend,  however,  had 
now  a  trusty  agent  of  his  own  for  counter-working  both 
his  rival  and  Schaub  at  the  French  court. 

The  incident  ended  in  Schaub  being  recalled  for 
an  incompetent  bungler,  in  old  Horace  Walpole, 
Sir  Robert's  brother,  superseding  him,  and  being 
plainly  told  by  the  French  regent  that  the  de- 
scendant of  St  Louis  could  not  sully  the  highest 
title  in  his  peerage  to  promote  his  subject's  marriage 
with  a  bride  of  such  questionable  parentage.  The 
"old  Horace  Walpole,"  of  his  more  famous  nephew 
and  namesake's  diaries,  remained  at  the  English 
Embassy  in  Paris  till  1730.  His  ascendancy  over 
Cardinal  Fleury  was  due  to  the  marked  courtesy  paid 

93 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

the  French  minister  by  Walpole,  while  that  official 
was  for  a  short  time  out  of  favour.  Hence  the  oppor- 
tunities enjoyed  by  the  elder  Horace  Walpole  of 
promoting  the  diplomacy  of  his  brother,  Sir  Robert, 
and  of  contributing  to  the  fall  of  Carteret.  This  too- 
clever  servant  of  the  English  crown,  as  social  and 
political  diplomatist  indeed  overleaped  himself;  the 
Walpoles  took  the  winning  trick  in  the  international 
game  ;  Carteret  himself  was  shelved  in  Ireland. 

In  1724,  the  Duke  of  Newcastle,  succeeding 
Carteret  as  Secretary  for  the  Southern  Department, 
had  France  in  his  province ;  he  managed  his  French 
business  through  the  veteran  who  had  relieved 
Schaub  in  the  way  already  described.  Townshend, 
however,  as  the  other  State  Secretary,  disputed 
his  colleague's  right  to  the  exclusive  control  of  the 
English  chancery  in  Paris.  The  Anglo-French 
diplomacy  of  this  period  was  as  confused  and  con- 
tradictory as  the  crooked  purposes  and  intrigues  of 
its  directors  could  not  help  making  it.  Abuses  and 
inefficiency  of  all  kinds  were  indeed  guaranteed  by 
the  arrangements  for  regulating  our  external  relations 
during  nearly  three  centuries  (1539-1782).  However 
the  work  might  have  been  divided,  it  was  obviously 
of  a  kind  demanding  the  unintermitted  supervision  and 
control  of  one  competent  and  responsible  chief.  That 
had  no  doubt  been  forthcoming  when  a  Tudor  king 
was  his  own  Foreign  Minister  and  used  his  Secre- 
taries of  State  as  clerks.  Afterwards,  however,  the 
welfare  of  Great  Britain  beyond  seas  was  left  to  be 
intrigued  about  and  quarrelled  over  by  two  de- 
partmental heads,  each  playing  for  his  own  hand, 
and  constantly  endeavouring  to  assert  himself  outside 

94 


Chatham :   His  Work  and  its  Results 

his  own  territorial  limit.  As  Southern  Secretary, 
the  Duke  of  Newcastle  had  nothing  to  do  with 
Austria,  which  belonged  to  the  Northern  Secretary. 
This,  in  succession  to  Townshend,  was  William 
Stanhope,  known  from  1730  as  Lord  Harrington. 
Like  Benjamin  Keene,  he  learned  diplomacy  in  the 
same  Spanish  school  as  that  studied  in  by  his  famous 
kinsman  of  an  earlier  day,  the  first  Earl  Stanhope. 
As  has  been  done  by  other  members  of  his  profession, 
he  illustrated  the  diplomatic  aptitude  hereditary  in 
certain  families ;  if,  since  him,  none  of  his  stock  have 
been  ambassadors,  every  generation  of  Stanhopes 
has  produced  men  cast  by  Nature  for  the  part  of 
diplomatist.  Newcastle  was  bent  on  including  all 
foreign  affairs  in  his  province  ;  he  plagued  Harrington, 
as  he  had  plagued  Robinson,  Keene  and  others 
before  him,  with  letters  marked  "most  private  and 
confidential,"  not  exactly  instructing  their  recipients 
what  to  do,  but  only  saying  what,  if  he  were  in  their 
position,  the  writer  would  do  himself. 

The  chaotic  character  of  our  international  states- 
manship in  the  early  eighteenth  century  was  further 
promoted  by  the  frequent  absences  of  the  two  first 
Georges  in  Hanover.  George  I.  made  the  journey 
to  and  fro  five  times  in  the  thirteen  years  of  his 
reign  ;  his  son,  including  the  time  spent  on  the  road, 
out  of  the  three-and-thirty  years  of  his  kingship, 
passed  an  aggregate  of  three  in  his  German  realm. 
As  absolutist  in  their  pretensions  and  as  autocratic 
in  their  ideas  as  the  Stuarts,  the  earlier  Hanoverian 
kings  used  their  Secretaries  of  State,  Northern  or 
Southern,  as  servants  of  their  household  at  home 
for  sending  instructions  to  their  representatives 

95 


The  Story  of  British   Diplomacy 

abroad.  The  monarch  spent  much  of  his  time  upon 
the  road  ;  with  him  was  always  a  minister  in  attend- 
ance. The  secretary  who  stayed  at  home  was 
caballing  against  the  colleague  who  was  abroad. 
Which  of  the  two  succeeded  in  making  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  day  the  organ  of  his  ideas,  was  deter- 
mined by  a  scramble  that  made  State  policy  the 
creature  of  luck  and  chance.  The  Duke  of  New- 
castle, the  real  Foreign  Minister  in  the  Pelham  ad- 
ministration, hated  foreign  travel  for  personal  rather 
than  patriotic  reasons.  He  saw,  however,  the  in- 
conveniences to  the  public  service  caused  by  gadabout 
ministers,  dancing  attendance  on  feverish  and  fidgety 
kings.  "  The  wonder,"  he  said,  "  is  not  that  things  so 
often  go  wrong,  but  that  anything  should  ever  go  right." 
Politically  and  diplomatically,  English  ambassadors 
and  their  staffs  looked  ahead  as  little  as  might  be ; 
if  their  statesmanship  was  wise  and  carefully  thought 
out,  it  might  be  overruled  at  any  moment  by  their 
private  enemies  in  the  favoured  faction  at  home. 
Literally,  too,  as  well  as  politically,  they  lived  from 
hand  to  mouth.  Their  salaries  indeed  were,  for  the 
most  part,  paid  pretty  punctually.  The  allowances  for 
incidental  outlay,  known  as  "extraordinaries,"  were 
always  in  arrear.  The  Treasury  had  to  be  dunned 
for  months  and  even  years  before  these  claims  were 
settled.  Lord  Waldegrave  at  Paris,  and  Sir  Benjamin 
Keene  at  Madrid,  the  latter  the  most  useful  am- 
bassador of  his  time,  finding  mere  importunity  fail, 
tried  bribery  in  the  hope  of  getting  back  their  out- 
of-pocket  expenses.  They  sent  large  presents  of  wine 
and  tobacco  to  the  Pelham  brothers,  or  costlier 

"gratifications"  to  under-strappers  at  St  James s  and 

96 


Chatham  :   His  Work  and  its  Results 

head  clerks  at  Whitehall ;  but  no  cash  came.  The 
British  Embassy  at  Constantinople,  in  particular,  was 
notorious  as  a  hotbed  of  scandal  and  incompetence. 
Abraham  Stanyan  (1669-1732)  first  made  his  mark 
in  the  diplomatic  service  as  envoy  to  the  Swiss 
cantons.  Appointed  to  the  Constantinople  Embassy, 
he  acquired  the  luxurious  habits  and  official  indolence 
of  the  East.  His  recall  became  inevitable.  He  re- 
fused, however,  to  leave  till  the  Government  had 
squared  a  long-standing  account  he  had  against  them  ; 
for  had  he  not,  as  a  junior  in  the  service  at  Turin, 
pawned  a  diamond  ring  and  a  gold  snuff-box  to  pay 
his  weekly  living  bills,  when  his  salary  was  just  a 
year  overdue  ?  Let  the  State  settle  accounts  with 
him  ;  he  would  then  think  of  vacating  the  legation. 
Lord  Kinnoull,  who  eventually  replaced  Stanyan, 
united  with  some  of  his  predecessor's  tastes  a 
violently  ungovernable  temper.  He  reached  Turkey 
at  a  moment  when  France  was  trying  to  embroil 
the  Porte  in  a  war  against  the  Empire  ;  his  instruc- 
tions were  to  co-operate  with  the  Dutch  ambassador 
in  urging  a  peace  policy  upon  the  Sultan.  Instead 
of  doing  this,  he  at  once  quarrelled  with  the  diplo- 
matist from  The  Hague,  and  found  his  special  friend 
in  the  Parisian  diplomatist,  Villeneuve.  He  was  soon 
recalled ;  Sir  Everard  Fawkener  was  nominated  to 
the  appointment.  Kinnoull,  however,  refused  to  go 
on  board  the  man-of-war  which  had  been  sent  to 
take  him  home.  He  remained  as  a  rival  envoy  for 
a  year  at  Constantinople,  thwarting  Fawkener  at 
every  point,  and  eventually  asking  promotion  from 
his  Government  as  a  reward  for  extraordinary  services. 

Another  diplomatic  curiosity  of  this  period  is  best 
G  97 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

known  from  Chesterfield's  oft-quoted  remark — "  The 
truth  is,  that  Tyrawley  and  I  have  been  dead  for 
some  years,  but  we  have  not  let  anyone  know." 
Lord  Tyrawley,  when  in  the  army,  had  been 
Maryborough's  aide-de-camp  at  Malplaquet.  Sent 
as  envoy  to  Lisbon,  for  the  special  purpose  of 
preventing  war  between  Portugal  and  Spain,  he 
had  no  sooner  reached  his  destination  than  he  was 
"  spoiling  for  a  fight,"  if  not  between  Spain  and 
Portugal,  with  his  colleague  Sir  John  Norris,  whom 
he  abused  roundly  in  all  his  home  despatches.  Norris 
returned  the  compliment.  The  two  ambassadors 
excluded  each  other  from  the  dinners  given  by  them 
on  the  queen's  birthday.  Each  of  the  hosts  told 
his  guests  that  he  hated  his  colleague  only  one  degree 
more  than  he  did  the  Dutch  minister  with  whom  he 
had  been  sent  to  co-operate,  and  whom  both  Tyrawley 
and  Norris  always  spoke  of  as  "that  d — d  Til." 

Benjamin  Keene,  at  Madrid,  had  other  difficulties 
than  those  arising  from  the  retention  of  his  agency 
for  the  South  Sea  Company  after  he  had  become 
representative  of  the  English  king ;  some  of  these 
resulted  from  the  peculiar  habits  of  the  Spanish 
court.  Philip  V.  occasionally  amused  himself  by 
taking  to  his  bed  for  months  at  a  time,  leaving  State 
business  to  his  ambitious  wife,  Elizabeth  Farnese, 
but  stipulating  that  no  final  decision  should  be  given 
till  he  might  be  in  the  humour  to  deal  with  State 
papers.  If  Keene  had  possessed  the  social  con- 
nection, the  spirit  and  the  energy  shown  by  his 
predecessor  Stanhope,  he  would  have  passed  for 
Stanhope's  superior.  As  it  was,  he  had  not  the 

good  fortune  to  be  actively  employed  under  the  dis- 

98 


Chatham :   His  Work  and  its   Results 

pensation  of  the  elder  Pitt,  whom  he  would  have 
exactly  suited.  The  trained  intellect,  the  habit  of 
accurate  observation  which  it  ensures,  loyalty,  spirit, 
promptitude  and  exactness  in  fulfilling  orders  based 
on  the  reports  furnished,  "These,  said  Chatham, 
"are  the  qualities  indispensable  to  a  good  ambassa- 
dor." They  were  all  of  them  combined  in  Keene. 

Among  his  professional  contemporaries,  mention 
has  been  already  made  of  Robert  D'Arcy,  fourth  Earl 
of  Holdernesse.  The  son  of  the  second  earl,  he 
succeeded  to  the  title  in  1722,  began  his  Continental 
career  by  going  with  George  II.  to  Hanover  as  lord- 
of- the -bedchamber  in  1743.  Next  year  came  his 
embassy  to  the  republic  of  Venice,  lasting  to  1746. 
Serving  in  the  same  Government  as  Walpole,  he  seemed 
to  that  statesman  an  unthinking,  an  unparliamentary 
minister.  In  diplomacy  his  figure  is  of  permanent 
interest.  More  vividly  and  consistently  than  had  yet 
been  done  by  most  members  of  his  vocation,  he 
realised  the  ornamental  possibilities  of  an  ambassador's 
calling,  and  reflected  the  dignity  and  magnificence  of 
the  sovereign  he  represented  in  the  superb  appoint- 
ments of  his  own  daily  life.  In  the  sight  of  the  court 
to  which  he  was  accredited  and  the  capital  at  which  he 
lived,  to  magnify  his  apostleship  seemed  to  Holdernesse 
only  the  loyal  glorification  of  King  George  of  England. 

It  is  recorded  of  a  popular  diplomatist — the  Lord 
Napier  and  Ettrick  of  the  nineteenth  century — that, 
asked  by  a  great  lady  who  was  the  most  agreeable 
man  in  Europe,  he  replied  quite  simply,  "  I  am."  To 
a  similar  question  a  like  answer  might  properly  have 
been  given  by  William  Capel,  the  third  Earl  of  Essex, 
who  in  1743  represented  England  at  Turin.  Belong- 

99 


The   Story   of  British  Diplomacy 

ing  to  the  stately  school  of  Holdernesse,  Essex  would 
not  be  bored  with  the  drudgeries  of  diplomacy  ;  he 
entertained  illustrious  Englishmen,  when  on  their 
travels,  at  his  embassy  ;  he  introduced  them,  if  they 
were  sufficiently  presentable,  to  the  prettiest  women, 
the  most  serviceable  men  and  the  most  desirable  hosts 
of  the  capital.  He  wrote  a  few  important  despatches 
with  his  own  hand  ;  by  his  suavity  and  tact  he  helped 
on  the  treaty  between  Maria  Theresa  and  the  King  of 
Sardinia,  which  constituted  the  sum  and  essence  of 
Anglo- Austrian  policy  in  1740.  He  at  no  time, 
however,  seemed  so  happy  or  so  much  in  his  element 
as  when  arranging  the  dinner  menus,  the  private 
theatricals  or  the  concerts  which  made  his  house  at 
Turin  the  most  charming  and  coveted  of  cosmopolitan 
resorts  in  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century.  His 
contemporary,  at  Paris,  and  socially  his  rival,  was  James, 
the  first  Earl  Waldegrave.  As  Holdernesse  had 
stamped  diplomacy  with  the  mark  of  magnificence  and 
fashion,  so  did  Waldegrave  invest  it  with  the  associa- 
tions of  intellect.  The  tradition  thus  created  for 
diplomacy  was  to  descend  from  the  man  who  founded 
it,  as  a  paternal  legacy,  to  his  son,  the  second  Lord 
Waldegrave,  who  owed  his  gift  of  literary  portraiture 
to  his  father.  The  first  Lord  Waldegrave  was  not 
only  a  good  talker  himself,  but  made  those  he  gathered 
about  him  talk  better  as  his  guests  than  they  were 
ever  known  to  do  elsewhere. 

All  the  controllers  of  English  diplomacy  in  the 
eighteenth  century  now  passed  in  review  are  insignifi- 
cant in  comparison  with  the  elder  Pitt,  who  died  Earl 
of  Chatham.  His  career  and  achievements  belong- 
rather  to  the  general  history  of  this  country  than  to 

100 


Chatham :   His  Work  and  its  Results 

the  present  narrative  of  diplomatic  movements  and 
their  directors.  The  anomalies  of  his  position  are,  in 
their  way,  not  less  than  the  picturesqueness  of  his 
personality  or  the  durability  of  his  statesmanship. 
The  supreme  moulder  of  international  politics,  he  had, 
till  his  decline  after  1761,  undergone  no  technical 
apprenticeship  to  diplomacy  and  was  never  sent  on 
any  foreign  mission.  The  mover  of  fleets  and  armies 
from  one  end  of  the  world  to  the  other,  the  organiser 
of  victory  by  land  or  sea  in  both  hemispheres,  he  never 
presided  over  the  departments  of  Admiralty  or  War. 
The  unmaker  and  maker  of  administrations,  the  ruling 
spirit  of  national  policy,  he  never  bore  the  title  of  First 
Minister  of  the  Crown,  nor  officially  advanced  beyond 
the  Secretaryship  of  State  for  the  Southern  Department, 
The  object  of  his  diplomacy  was  to  enforce,  through 
his  ambassadors,  the  public  opinion  which  he  had 
created  and  the  national  ambition  which  he  had 
inspired.  The  specific  means  employed  to  pursue 
that  end  were  those  provided  by  the  circumstances 
and  agencies  of  the  time.  The  fundamental  principle 
of  his  policy  survives  to-day  in  the  familiar  phrase, 
''Trade  follows  the  flag."  Directly  he  saw  himself 
backed  by  the  nation,  and  not  before,  he  took  office  as 
a  step  towards  a  single  end — the  salvation  of  the 
country  and  the  creation  of  the  empire.  The  condition 
on  which  he  entered  the  Government  of  the  day  was 
that  he  should  in  himself  embody  the  entire  adminis- 
tration and,  though  the  holder  of  a  nominally 
subordinate  office,  should  exercise  supremacy  over 
every  section  of  the  public  service.  Master  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  he  dealt  with  that  assembly  in 

much  the  same  fashion  as  it  had  been  used  by  absolute 

101 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

monarchs,  not  for  council  or  discussion,  but  for  raising 
the  supplies  required  to  enforce  a  predetermined 
policy.  A  ruler  by  hereditary  right  might  claim  the 
prerogative  of  war  and  peace.  The  true  "  patriot 
king,"  drawing  his  mandate  not  from  Parliament,  but 
from  the  nation,  was  Pitt  himself.  His  statesmanship 
abroad  knew  but  a  single  end,  to  be  promoted  by  two 
sets  of  means.  The  object  showed  itself  in  the  world- 
wide ascendancy  of  England  ;  the  method,  never  lost 
sight  of  in  all  the  dealings  with  foreign  Powers,  was 
the  thwarting  of  Bourbon  ambition  and,  as  instru- 
mental to  that,  the  alliance  between  Great  Britain  and 
Prussia.  Treaties,  truces,  armaments,  campaigns,  the 
bitterest  opposition  to  Hanoverian  subsidies  at  one 
time,  millions  lavished  on  Hanover  and  Prussia  at 
another,  all  this  judged  by  the  result,  becomes  in- 
telligible and  consistent,  as  it  seemed  to  Frederick 
the  Great  himself  when  he  said — "  Monsieur  Pitt,  a 
la  meilleure  tete  dans  1'Europe,"  and,  "  England  has 
long  been  in  travail :  at  last  she  has  brought  forth 
a  man."  Though  during  four  years  he  controlled 
foreign  policy — as  for  that  matter  he  controlled  the 
great  spending  departments  of  the  State — it  would  be 
not  less  inappropriate  to  call  Pitt  a  professional  dip- 
lomatist than  it  would  be  to  call  him  a  professional 
soldier,  because  for  the  same  time  he  had  in  his  youth 
held  a  commission  in  the  Blues.  His  oratory  was  the 
prolonged,  but  emphatic,  echo  of  the  voice  which  his 
inspiration  had  drawn  forth  from  the  mass  of  his 
countrymen.  At  foreign  courts  and  capitals  he 
expected  British  ambassadors  to  be  the  nation's  mouth- 
pieces and  his  own  instruments.  The  most  memorable 

phrases  of  his  eloquence,  soon   after   they  had   been 

102 


Chatham :   His  Work  and  its  Results 

uttered,  became  for  all  time  the  commonplaces  of 
patriotism  and  of  practical  wisdom.  The  best-known 
specimens  may  be  given  in  a  few  words  here.  "  Con- 
fidence is  a  plant  of  slow  growth  in  an  aged  bosom." 
"  Magna  Charta,  the  Petition  of  Right,  the  Bill  of 
Rights,  form  the  Bible  of  the  English  Constitution." 
"  Where  law  ends,  tyranny  begins."  "  Every  English- 
man's house  is  his  castle  ;  the  wind  may  blow  through 
it,  the  storm  may  enter,  but  the  King  of  England  and  all 
his  forces  cannot  cross  the  threshold  of  the  tenement." 

A  consummate  actor,  with  the  whole  nation,  if 
not  the  entire  world,  for  audience,  the  elder  Pitt 
used  Parliament  as  a  platform  for  addressing  the 
nation,  just  as  his  son  consulted  no  other  tastes  than 
those  of  the  House  of  Commons.  However  danger- 
ously near  to  being  platitudes,  sonorous  generalisations 
and  fine  sentiments  never  fail  to  move  the  gallery. 
Hence  their  abundance  in  Chatham's  speeches.  To 
inflame  his  countrymen  with  a  sense  of  their  duties 
and  their  greatness  was  the  one  object  of  his  eloquence  ; 
to  that  end  it  was  perfectly  adapted.  Equally  simple 
was  the  line  of  international  statesmanship  which  he 
had  laid  down  for  himself — to  employ  the  greatest 
European  conqueror  of  his  time,  Frederick  the  Great, 
as  an  agent  and  colleague  in  building  up  the  fabric  of 
British  empire.  Such  an  ally  was  well  worth  the 
heavy  price  of  furnishing  the  gold  and  arms  that 
defeated  the  European  combination  to  crush  the 
Prussian  king. 

Something  more  must  now  be  said  about  Pitt's  dip- 
lomatic methods  and  the  incidents  connected  with  them. 
"  Omne  solum  forti  patria"  he  himself  denounced 

as  the   fatal   casuistry  of  a  villain  like   Bolingbroke. 

103 


The  Story   of  British  Diplomacy 

"  Nullum  solum  nisi  Britannia  "  would  have  been  a  fit 
motto  for  Pitt's  lifelong  motives.  His  ambition,  had 
it  been  fulfilled,  would  have  annexed  the  four  quarters 
of  the  globe  to  the  English  crown.  The  diplomacy  of 
Pitt  was  the  embodiment  and  glorification  of  the 
inconsistency  and  opportunism  which  in  an  earlier 
chapter  were  seen  to  be  the  general  characteristics  of 
England's  foreign  statesmanship.  In  1735  he  first 
made  his  parliamentary  mark  by  denunciations  of 
the  English  payments  to  Hessian  and  Hanoverian 
troops.  In  1757  he  risked  the  loss  of  favour  with 
George  II.  by  insisting  upon  the  alliance  of  England 
with  Prussia,  and  he  sent  Frederick  reinforcements 
of  12,000  men.  Of  course,  during  this  interval  of 
twenty  odd  years  the  European  situation,  and  with  it 
the  international  interests  of  England,  had  undergone 
a  complete  change.  Pitt  was  in  advance  of  all  his 
contemporaries  in  seeing  where  the  true  concerns  and 
obligations  of  his  country  now  lay.  It  had,  as  he  was 
the  first  to  perceive,  and  as  he  gradually  convinced 
both  court  and  cabinet,  ceased  to  be  merely  a  ques- 
tion of  reinstating  Maria  Theresa  in  her  ancestral 
dominions,  on  the  one  hand,  or  of  squandering  English 
treasure  and  lives  upon  a  petty  Teutonic  principality  on 
the  other.  The  one  ally  possible  for  England  was  in 
danger  of  being  crushed  by  the  colossal  confederacy  of 
Continental  states,  whose  next  victim  was  to  be  Eng- 
land herself.  At  the  period  now  reached  (1757-1761), 
the  European  episode  determining  Pitt's  diplomacy 
was  the  understanding,  begun  in  1733,  renewed  in 
1 743,  between  the  French  and  Spanish  Bourbons  for 
crushing  England.  Taken  in  connection  with  earlier 

documents  of  the  series,  the  Family  Compact  of  1761 

104 


Chatham  :  His  Work  and  its  Results 

formed  part  of  the  Franco-Spanish  policy  secretly 
elaborated  for  dividing  the  world  between  the  dynasties 
of  Paris  and  Madrid.  Of  the  first  treaty,  that  of 
1733,  enough  has  been  said  in  an  earlier  chapter. 
The  agreement  of  ten  years  later  was  merely  its 
emphatic  enlargement.  As  was  first,  among  English 
writers,  shown  by  Professor  Seeley,  and  among  English 
statesmen  of  his  time  was  first  seen  by  Pitt,  each  of 
these  treaties  formed  part  of  one  diplomatic  whole. 
That  unity  constituted  the  crowned  conspiracy  against 
his  country  which  Pitt  baffled.  In  his  early  and 
accurate  acquaintance  with  the  designs  of  foreign 
sovereigns  and  their  ministers,  Pitt  contrived  to  show 
himself  omniscient.  He  often,  however,  derived  little 
of  this  knowledge  from  the  accredited  diplomatists  of 
England.  Thus,  in  and  about  the  year  1761,  Bristol, 
the  British  ambassador  at  Madrid,  was  as  ignorant  as 
a  babe  of  the  latest  Franco-Spanish  negotiation. 
From  his  secret  agents  alone,  mysterious  and  nameless 
persons,  sometimes  ladies,  Pitt  became  cognisant  of 
each  successive  detail  within  a  day  or  two  of  its  being 
settled.  The  official  representative  of  England  in 
Spain,  confronted  by  Pitt  with  these  discoveries,  could 
only  raise  his  hands  to  heaven  in  silent  horror. 
General  Wall,  the  Spanish  Foreign  Minister,  admitted 
their  truth,  but  protested  Spain  had  no  ill-will  to 
Britain.  That  Pitt  knew  better  was  due  to  his  spies 
in  every  corner  of  France  and  Spain.  These  had 
forwarded  him  copies  of  the  clauses  levelled  against 
the  very  existence  of  his  country,  contained  in  the 
diplomatic  instruments  which,  the  English  Government 
were  assured,  were  in  no  degree  inimical  to  King 

George.     While   the  fair  words  were  being   uttered, 

105 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

Pitt  knew  they  were  being  contradicted  by  intrigues  and 
by  preparations  for  war.  And  yet  he  had  really  shown 
a  wish  for  peace.  In  1757  he  had  induced  George 
II.  to  acquiesce  in  a  secret  treaty  with  Spain,  upon 
terms  that,  while  testifying  the  sincerity  of  Pitt's  desire 
to  bring  hostilities  to  a  close,  must  have  done  violence 
to  his  patriotic  pride.  Ever  since  the  Utrecht  settle- 
ment had  confirmed  England  in  its  possession, 
Gibraltar  had  been  the  subject  of  clandestine  negotia- 
tions between  the  Spanish  Government  and  English 
statesmen  of  all  parties.  Its  surrender  to  Spain  was 
contemplated  by  one  of  the  provisions  which  Pitt 
entertained  in  1757.  In  return,  Spain  was  to  assist 
England  to  recover  Minorca.  It  may  well  be  that 
Pitt  acquiesced  in  such  concessions,  rather  to  test  the 
genuineness  of  the  Spanish  Government's  pacific  pro- 
fessions than  because  he  believed  his  offer  would  be 
accepted.  The  chief  of  the  Madrid  Foreign  Office, 
Wall,  with  whom  Pitt  and  his  private  agents,  as  well 
as  the  ambassador  Bristol,  had  to  deal,  shrewdly 
abstained  almost  entirely  from  committing  himself  by 
writing,  and  often  succeeded  in  talking  over  the  British 
representative.  The  admixture  of  Spanish  blood  still 
shows  itself  in  the  features  and  complexions  to  be  seen 
in  the  extreme  West  of  Ireland.  The  controller  of  the 
diplomatic  system  of  the  Peninsula,  from  175410  1764, 
was  a  Galway  man.  Born  in  1694,  Richard  Wall 
served  both  in  the  Spanish  fleet  and  the  Spanish 
army.  In  the  international  affairs  of  his  adopted 
country  he  made  himself  so  indispensable  that  his 
resignation  of  office,  repeatedly  tendered,  had  been 
thus  far  refused.  He  saw  no  other  way  for  getting 

out  of  harness  than  by  a  sufficiently  simple  ruse.     One 

106 


Chatham :   His  Work  and  its  Results 

day  he  appeared  at  his  office  in  the  Prado,  with  a 
shade  over  eyes  that  looked  red  and  angry.  His 
sight,  he  said,  was  failing ;  the  inflammation  proved 
indeed  to  be  temporary  only  ;  it  had  been  produced 
artificially  by  some  ointment.  The  device,  however, 
succeeded  and  Wall  obtained  his  discharge.  During 
the  ten  years  he  directed  the  foreign  politics  of  Spain, 
Wall  proved  himself  more  than  a  match  for  the  com- 
bined diplomacy  and  diplomatists  of  Western  Europe. 
Bristol,  high  bred,  honourable,  but  never  properly 
grounded  in  the  elements  of  his  trade,  was  systemati- 
cally hoodwinked  by  him.  Pitt's  private  agents  were 
bamboozled.  Only  Pitt  himself  was  not  to  be  caught. 

Pitt's  diplomacy  attained  its  object  for  two  reasons. 
In  an  age  when  the  giving  and  taking  of  bribes,  from  the 
highest  to  the  lowest,  was  universal,  he  trusted  no  foreign 
statesman  or  sovereign.  He  checked  the  reports  received 
from  his  ambassadors  by  the  inquiries  of  his  secret  agents; 
in  the  background  of  his  peaceful  international  machinery 
he  had  stationed  an  army  and  navy,  at  a  cost  of  be- 
tween eight  and  nine  millions,  increased  by  100,000  men. 

What  were  the  exact  means  by  which  Pitt  had 
acquired  the  knowledge  that  had  shown  itself  in  his 
whole  scheme  of  international  policy  and  in  this 
strengthening  of  the  national  resources  as  the  only 
method  of  giving  to  that  policy  effect  ?  The  details 
involved  in  an  answer  to  this  question  will  also  serve 
to  explain  the  secret  of  the  great  minister's  resignation. 
Throughout  the  eighteenth  century,  Turin  was  the 
chief  centre  of  political  intrigue  in  Southern  Europe. 
The  English  representative  at  this  capital  was  Sir 
James  Stewart  Mackenzie.  His  first  secretary  who 

afterwards  became  his  successor,  was  a  certain  Lewis 

107 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

Dutens.  By  detecting  and  deciphering  the  secret 
correspondence  between  the  Neapolitan  Foreign 
Secretary  and  the  Foreign  Minister  of  the  King  of 
Savoy  and  Sardinia,  Dutens  had  discovered  the  secret 
treaty  of  Spain  with  France  which,  concluded  in  the 
hour  of  Spain's  professed  neutrality,  constituted  the 
Family  Compact  of  1761.  Dutens  himself,  whatever 
may  have  been  alleged  to  the  contrary,  had  no  direct 
communication  with  Pitt ;  he  was,  however,  on  intimate 
terms  with  one  of  Pitt's  secretaries.  To  him  therefore 
Dutens  confided  what  he  had  found  out.  In  October 
1761  came  the  famous  meeting  of  the  British  Cabinet 
in  London.  Pitt  denounced  to  his  colleagues  "  the 
secret  engagements  of  the  whole  House  of  Bourbon." 
Now  was  revealed  the  effect  of  the  work  in  London 
society  and  politics,  on  which  Bussy  and  his  foreign 
colleagues  had  long  been  engaged.  These  of  course 
had  found  convenient  material  on  which  to  work  in 
the  social  and  political  jealousy  of  the  great  minister. 
"  Does  the  right  honourable  gentleman  seriously 
intend  us  to  believe  this  cock-and-bull  story  ?  "asked 
one  of  Pitt's  colleagues.  The  thing,  it  was  asserted 
was  an  absurdity  which  no  reasonable  man  could  credit. 
At  any  rate,  if  he  had  them,  let  Pitt  produce  his 
authorities.  The  only  notice  taken  of  this  challenge 
by  Pitt  was  a  sneer  about  playing  with  men  who  used 
loaded  dice.  "  I  say,"  he  said,  "  that  which  I  know  ;  I 
will  not  disclose  my  proofs  to  an  incredulous  audience." 
With  these  words  the  great  Commoner  quitted  the  room, 
went  home,  and  wrote  his  letter  of  resignation  to  the 
king.*  In  doing  so,  he  of  course  played  his  enemies' 

*  The  authorities  for  the  view  of  Pitt's  resignation  here  taken  and  for  the 
event  connected  with  it  are  the  Revue  cPHistoire  Diplomatique  (1887-98), 
Von  Ruville's  Chatham  and  Bute  and  Seeley's  House  of  Bourbon. 

108 


Chatham :   His  Work  and  its  Results 

game  by  leaving  the  field  open  to   Bute,  already  his 
rival  and  now  his  assured  successor. 

For  some  time  before  this  dramatic  denouement,  real 
progress  had  been  made  towards  the  conclusion  of 
a  general  peace.  With  Austria  and  Russia,  France 
had  already  come  to  terms.  How  successfully  the 
French  ambassador  Bussy  had  done  his  work  of  throw- 
ing dust  in  the  eyes  of  the  London  court  and  cabinet 
has  been  already  seen.  While  he  had  been  thus 
engaged  on  the  Thames,  the  English  peace  party  had 
in  Paris  a  representative  after  their  own  heart  in  the 
chargk  d'affaires,  Hans  Stanley,  a  vivacious  and  clear- 
headed diplomatist,  of  whom  little  is  now  known 
beyond  the  fact  that  he  united  a  good  character  with 
eccentric  habits,  that  he  committed  suicide  in  1780,  and 
that  he  appears  in  Reynolds'  portrait  of  him  as  a  young 
man  with  a  long  face  and  dark  hair.  Stanley  occasion- 
ally left  his  diplomatic  work  in  Paris  for  short  visits 
to  London.  On  one  of  these  occasions  he  presented 
himself  at  Pitt's  house  in  St  James's  Square — that 
mansion  which  during  four  eventful  years  was  the 
central  bureau  of  British  Imperial  policy,  civil  or 
military,  and  beneath  whose  roof  both  the  English 
diplomacy  of  modern  times  and  the  British  Empire 
as  it  exists  to-day  were  born.  Pitt,  however,  never 
received  this  visitor,  deep  as  he  was  in  the  confidence 
of  his  rivals.  The  man  whom  Stanley  did  see, 
Bute,  lived  in  the  Mayfair  palace,  known  to-day  as 
Lansdowne  House.  This  had  recently  come  into  the 
possession  of  Lord  Bute,  Pitt's  supplanter,  and  there 
were  discussed  and  arranged  the  English  conditions  for 
the  settlement  between  England,  France,  Spain  and 

Portugal  constituting  the  Peace  of  Paris  (1763).     Upon 

109 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

terms  compromising  neither  his  own  honour  nor  his 
country's  Imperial  position,  Pitt,  had  his  health  held 
out  and  his  temper  subordinated  itself  to  his  judg- 
ment, might  himself  have  arranged  a  treaty.  The 
conventional  criticisms  of  his  foreign  statesmanship 
on  the  ground  of  its  expense  are  to  some  extent 
disposed  of  by  the  immense  increase  in  the  distance 
from  London  of  his  military  and  naval  operations. 
This  fact  alone  prohibits  a  comparison  between  the 
cost  of  English  warfare  in  the  times  of  Marl  bo  rough 
and  of  Chatham  respectively.  As  regards  Pitt  him- 
self, his  policy  and  foresight  had  been  vindicated  by 
everything  that  had  happened  since  he  stalked  out  of 
the  memorable  cabinet  in  the  October  of  1761,  in- 
dignantly refusing  to  be  the  associate  of  men  who  were 
the  willing  dupes  of  Continental  knaves,  crowned  or 
uncrowned.  The  charge  against  him  of  prolonging 
the  war  against  the  wish  as  well  as  against  the  interests 
of  his  country  is  on  the  face  of  it  absurd.  If  the 
nation  had  desired  that  hostilities  should  cease,  had 
really  thought  enough,  and  more  than  enough,  to 
satisfy  the  honour  of  Britain  had  been  gained,  it  could 
at  any  moment  have  stopped  supplies.  Even  Pitt's 
nominal  supporters  in  diplomacy  and  Parliament 
numbered  some  who  were  waiting  an  opportunity 
to  turn  against  him.  The  king's  friends,  joining  with 
the  malcontent  Pittites,  could  have  brought  down  the 
edifice  of  foreign  statesmanship  he  was  constructing. 
When  he  had  gone,  nothing  occurred  which  he  had 
not  predicted.  Each  day  furnished  some  fresh  proof 
of  the  enduring  reality  of  mutual  obligations  of  France 
and  Spain,  created  by  the  Family  Compact  which 

Bussy  had  fooled  the  English  Parliament  and  people 

no 


Chatham  :  His  Work  and  its  Results 

into  discrediting,  and  whose  disclosure  had  followed 
on  the  happy  accidents  already  related  that  conspired 
to  confirm  Pitt's  success  and  to  justify  his  judgment. 
Even  as  it  was,  the  command  of  India,  secured  to 
England  by  the  treaty  and  the  disestablishment  of  the 
military  power  of  France,  might  not  have  satisfied  the 
country,  had  not  the  great  ally  obtained  by  Chatham 
for  England,  Frederick  the  Great,  been  adding  success 
to  success  in  Germany  while  the  Anglo-French  negotia- 
tions were  going  forward.  Diplomatically,  the  peace 
of  1763  so  irritated  Prussia  that  England  found  herself 
once  more  completely  isolated. 

Unlike  Pitt,  Bute  did  not  even  endeavour  to  stamp 
his  personality  in  enduring  characters  on  foreign  policy. 
Pitt  himself  was  still  to  propound  another  scheme  of 
European  combinations  very  different  from  anything 
he  had  yet  suggested.  Notwithstanding  Pitt's  rupture 
with  the  Whigs,  the  king's  uncle,  the  old  Duke  of 
Cumberland,  persisted  in  regarding  him  as  the  only 
head  of  the  Whig  party.  In  that  capacity  the  retired 
minister  was  induced  to  come  forth  from  his  seclusion. 
The  conditions  of  European  policy  on  which  he 
insisted  were  now  to  balance  the  Family  Compact 
by  an  English  alliance  with  the  Protestant  Powers  of 
the  Continent.  The  professional  diplomatist,  Hans 
Stanley,  against  whom  the  doors  of  Pitt's  house  had 
previously  been  closed,  now  received  his  instructions 
directly  from  Pitt  himself.  This  envoy  was  started  off 
to  Berlin  and  St  Petersburg  to  negotiate  an  alliance 
against  the  Bourbon  dynasty  and  its  vast  designs. 
The  mission,  however,  proved  fruitless.  Stanley  had 
no  sooner  reached  the  Prussian  capital  than  Frederick 
unmistakably  showed  his  indifference  alike  to  European 


in 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

Protestantism  and  English  welfare.  British  states- 
manship, the  Prussian  monarch  complained,  as  regards 
external  relations,  so  entirely  lacked  continuity,  was  so 
fluctuating,  so  liable  to  be  upset  by  party  necessities  or 
intrigues  at  home,  that  he  could  not  risk  the  welfare  of 
his  realm  by  entering  into  any  fresh  arrangements 
with  the  Government  of  King  George.  The  truth  of 
course  was,  first,  that  Frederick  had  already  got  out  of 
England  all  he  specially  wanted,  and  that  he  was  now 
bent  upon  his  iniquitous  project  of  dismembering 
Poland.  Moreover,  the  great  Commoner,  whom  he 
had  before  so  extravagantly  eulogised,  had  ceased  to 
be  the  idol  of  the  country,  had  indeed  destroyed  his 
own  identity  by  becoming  Lord  Chatham.  The 
administration  which,  as  Lord  Privy  Seal,  Chatham 
directed,  was  manifestly  doomed  when  Chatham  him- 
self went  as  an  invalid  to  Bath. 

The  Chatham  administration  came  to  an  end  in 
December  1767.  The  chief  events  of  English  inter- 
national concern  between  that  date  and  Chatham's 
death  in  the  following  May  were  the  partition  of 
Poland  and  the  outbreak  of  the  war  that  ended  in  the 
creation  of  the  United  States.  Both  these  episodes 
placed  a  severe  and  continuous  strain  on  the  diplo- 
matic machinery  and  resources  of  England.  Both, 
however,  form  portions  of  the  national  annals,  too 
familiar,  and  in  most  of  their  details  too  accessible,  to 
be  dwelt  upon  at  any  length  here.  The  close  of 
Chatham's  parliamentary  career,  roughly  speaking, 
coincided  with  the  opening  of  a  period  in  our  inter- 
national relations,  not  indeed  of  graver  moment,  but  of 
perhaps  greater  complexity  than  even  that  with  which 

he  had  dealt.     By  converting  his  private  residence  in 

112 


Chatham  :  His  Work  and  its  Results 

St  James's  Square  into  the  Foreign  Office  of  the 
country  he  had,  when  nominally  Secretary  of  State 
for  the  Southern  Department,  anticipated  by  five  years 
the  concentration  of  the  external  affairs  of  the  country 
in  the  hands  of  one  responsible  minister  beneath  a 
single  roof.  On  the  3<Dth  of  May  1777,  Chatham  re- 
appeared in  Parliament  after  one  of  his  long  illnesses. 
Swathed  in  flannel  and  leaning  heavily  on  his  crutch,  he 
insisted  on  the  righteousness  and  wisdom  of  granting 
all  the  American  demands  except  independence.  As, 
however,  for  the  idea  of  the  Franco- American  alliance, 
the  intrigues  for  which  had  already  begun,  that,  he 
said,  must  mean  immediate  war.  What  were  the 
facts  ?  Directly  after  the  declaration  of  independence, 
the  United  States  had  sent  Adams  and  Franklin  to 
Paris  to  concert  a  commercial  and  defensive  alliance 
with  France.  The  envoys  contrived  to  make  them- 
selves the  fashionable  vogue  in  some  Parisian  salons. 
The  formal  treaty  against  England  was  not  so  easily 
to  be  arranged.  One  important  step  in  its  direction 
was,  however,  taken.  The  diplomatists  from  the  other 
side  of  the  Atlantic  contrived  to  talk  over  and  take  into 
their  pay  Silas  Deane,  while  nominally  attached  to  the 
British  Embassy  on  the  Seine.  He  it  was  who  advised 
the  Americans  to  seek  a  general  from  Europe,  in  either 
Prince  Ferdinand  of  Prussia  or  the  Italian  Marshal 
Broglio.  Before  this  suggestion  had  a  chance  of  bear- 
ing fruit,  English  diplomacy  had  organised  its  resources. 
The  first  British  Foreign  Office  came  into  existence 
in  Cleveland  Row,  St  James's,  with  Charles  James  Fox, 
a  leading  member  of  the  Rockingham  administration, 
as  the  earliest  English  minister  to  be  called  Secretary 

of  State  for  Foreign  Affairs  (27th  March  1782). 
H  113 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE   FIRST   TEN    YEARS    OF    THE    FOREIGN    OFFICE 

Jealousy  between  the  Foreign  Secretary  and  the  Home  Secretary — 
Fox  and  Shelburne — Sheridan  in  the  Foreign  Office — Fox's 
behaviour  as  Foreign  Minister — The  Oczakow  incident — Joseph 
Ewart — Eden,  Lord  Auckland — Fox's  diplomatic  ideas  those  of 
Chatham — Fox's  relations  with  France — Peace  with  England 
desired  by  the  French  Assembly — English  foreign  politics 
practically  unaffected  by  the  party-system — Pitt's  non-inter- 
vention policy — The  Declaration  of  Pilnitz — Hirsinger's  opinion 
of  the  English  attitude  towards  France — Talleyrand — Diplomacy 
and  finance — The  Due  de  Biron — The  Marquis  de  Chauvelin's 
mission — Pitt's  Alien  Act  of  1793 — The  Loo  Convention,  1788 
— War  declared  between  England  and  France. 

NO  circumstances  could  have  been  more  unfavour- 
able than  those  amid  which,  in  the  last  quarter 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  the  British  Foreign  Office 
was  born.  The  relations  already  described  as  exist- 
ing between  the  Northern  and  Southern  Secretaries 
had  bequeathed  an  evil  tradition  of  jealousy  and 
intrigue  to  the  ministers  who,  as  Foreign  Secretary 
and  Home  Secretary  respectively,  were  to  supersede 
them.  The  Colonial  Office  had  not  yet  a  separate 
existence  of  its  own.  The  colonies  themselves,  con- 
trolled from  the  Home  Office,  brought  the  minister 
responsible  for  them  into  constant  contact  with 
England's  neighbours  and  competitors.  They  thus 
placed  the  minister  of  the  interior  in  dangerous 
rivalry  with  his  colleague  who  conducted  our  external 

relations.     Moreover,  the  Whig  party,  then  in  power 

114 


The  First  Ten  Years  of  the  Foreign  Office 

for  the  second  time  under  Rockingham,  was  divided 
by  internal  differences,  personal  as  well  as  political. 
Shelburne,  a  disciple  of  Chatham,  could  support  his 
claim  to  the  Foreign  Secretaryship  by  a  thorough 
acquaintance  with  the  politics  and  politicians  of 
Europe.  Alone  among  the  public  men  of  his  age  in 
England  he  estimated  at  its  true  value  the  rising 
principle  of  nationality  as  a  political  force  on  the 
Continent ;  he  saw  the  time  to  be  near  at  hand  when 
foreign  statesmanship  would  be  affected  by  the 
interests  and  feelings  of  peoples  as  well  as  by  the 
ambitions  of  dynasties,  and  the  designs  of  their 
ministers.  The  other  claimant  to  the  control  of  the 
new  Foreign  Office,  Lord  Holland's  third  son,  com- 
bined with  some  of  Shelburne's  accomplishments  the 
confidence  of  the  aristocratic  Whig  committee  managing 
the  whole  connection.  A  good  classical  scholar,  he 
had  crowned  the  education  of  Eton  with  the  acquire- 
ment of  several  modern  languages.  He  had  made 
the  grand  tour  of  European  capitals  and  courts  with 
all  the  advantages  of  his  breeding  and  station. 
Shelburne's  knowledge  of  the  world  was  that  of  a 
scientific  student  of  affairs.  The  observations  made  by 
Fox  were  those  natural  to  a  well-born  man  of  fashion  and 
pleasure,  combining  great  intellect  and  shrewdness  with 
rare  charm  of  manner.  To  have  passed  over  Fox  would 
have  been  to  forfeit  votes  in  the  House  of  Commons. 
To  slight  Shelburne  was  to  raise  up  a  formidable 
enemy  for  the  new  department.  Party  considerations, 
therefore,  made  Fox  the  earliest  head  of  the  English 
Foreign  Office,  and  in  so  doing  placed  it  at  feud  with 
the  Home  Office,  which  had  been  given  to  Shelburne. 
The  two  departments  now  created  began,  and. 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

so  long  as  they  were  held  by  their  first  occupants, 
continued  at  war.  Shelburne,  early  habituated  to 
Imperial  thought,  occasionally  had  a  soul  above 
the  dull  drudgery  of  domestic  detail.  The  king's 
personal  favourite,  the  regular  intermediary  between 
the  court  and  the  cabinet,  he  used  his  opportuni- 
ties at  the  palace  to  acquaint  the  sovereign  with 
his  ideas  of  the  way  in  which  the  Foreign  Office  did 
its  work.  George  III.'s  idea  of  being  a  real  king 
was  to  set  the  ministers  he  disliked  at  loggerheads. 
The  offices  of  Permanent  and  Parliamentary  Under- 
secretary were  not  formally  constituted  till  much  later. 
Fox,  however,  contrived  to  find  a  subordinate  place  in 
his  department  for  the  author  of  The  Rivals.  The 
new  Foreign  Office  employee  was  not  to  be  its  only 
eighteenth-century  official  who  wrote  for  the  stage. 
He  was,  however,  the  only  one  who  at  any  period 
discharged  at  the  same  time  the  duties  of  Foreign 
Secretaryship  and  of  theatrical  management.  In 
Cleveland  Row  Sheridan  did  exactly  what  his  chief 
told  him.  At  Drury  Lane,  he  saw  that  Fox  had  the 
best  box  in  the  house.  The  story  of  The  School  for 
Scandal  having  been  written  on  Foreign  Office  paper 
is,  of  course,  a  myth  exploded  by  the  fact  that 
Sheridan's  dramas  had  been  composed  some  time 
before  his  connection  with  the  Foreign  Office  began. 

The  primitiveness  of  its  departmental  organisa- 
tion when  Fox  became  head  of  the  Foreign  Office 
is  suggested  by  the  many  offers  of  diplomatic  help 
which  he  received  from  volunteers  who  knew  nothing 
of  official  life,  but  who  were  in  the  way  of  picking 
up  much  that  the  Foreign  Minister  might  like  to 
hear.  These  overtures  were  periodically  renewed 

116 


The  First  Ten  Years  of  the  Foreign  Office 

throughout  his  whole  connection  at  subsequent  dates 
with  the  Office,  both  during  his  coalition  with  North  ten 
years  later,  and  again  in  his  final  term  of  office  under 
Grenville.  Amongst  those  who  at  a  later  date  thus 
approached  him  was  the  diarist,  Crabb  Robinson  ;  he 
had,  he  said,  translated  something  against  Bonaparte 
for  a  bookseller  named  Tipper ;  he  thought  he  might 
during  his  travels  pretty  often  hear  things  which 
Downing  Street  would  like  to  know.  His  new 
responsibilities  had  at  least  the  effect  of  sobering  the 
wayward  genius  who  opens  the  list  of  our  Foreign 
Office  chiefs.  It  was  Shakespeare's  story  retold  of 
Falstaffs  Prince  Hal  transformed  into  England's 
Henry  V.  Lord  Holland  could  testify  from  personal 
knowledge  that  throughout  his  official  period  Fox 
never  touched  a  card.  In  1793,  for  the  first  time  in 
his  life  he  had  a  house  of  his  own  in  Grafton  Street. 
Here,  in  all  the  social  functions  of  diplomacy,  he  was 
sweetness  and  light  personified.  Foreign  members 
of  the  corps  diplomatique  who  most  disliked  his 
politics  dwelt  in  the  home  letters  on  the  incomparable 
charm  of  Mr  Fox  as  host.  Even  George  III.  joined 
in  the  chorus  of  compliments  to  the  diplomatic  dinner- 
parties of  Grafton  Street.  The  Foreign  Secretary's 
present  politics  might  be  as  bad  as  were  his  former 
morals.  When,  however,  someone  praised  in  the 
royal  hearing  the  perfections  of  the  ministerial 
menage,  with  a  smile  of  approval  the  king,  emitting 
first  his  usual  "What,  what?"  quickly  added,  as  if  to 
close  the  conversation — "  Oh  yes,  Mr  Fox  is  a  gentle- 
man and  can  make  it  very  agreeable  to  do  business 
with  him."  Fox  once  described  himself  as  a  very 

painstaking  man.     He  stamped  the  mark  of  his  own 

117 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

industry  on  the  methods  of  the  department  and  he 
left  the  daily  routine  of  Foreign  Office  work  much 
what  it  was  found  to  be  by  Palmerston.  About  the 
very  definite  ideas  in  international  statesmanship 
entertained  and  executed  by  Fox,  something  will 
presently  be  said.  Socially  regarded,  he  was  among 
the  first  of  English  ministers  whose  dinner  invitations 
included  representatives  of  other  intellectual  interests 
than  politics.  Among  those  most  frequently  seated  at 
his  table  were  the  historian  of  the  Roman  Empire, 
Gibbon,  who  had  first  introduced  Sheridan  to  him 
soon  after  the  writing  of  The  Rivals,  and  the  most 
famous  European  diplomatist  of  the  epoch,  Talley- 
rand. The  latter  was  occasionally  his  host  in  Paris,  and 
with  less,  it  would  seem,  than  his  usual  felicity  and  point, 
described  Fox  as  a  sophist  who  ought  to  be  left 
in  the  clouds.  A  toady  of  Talleyrand,  who  traded  on 
a  reputation  for  knowledge,  chimed  in — "  True  ;  the 
clouds  are  the  tutelary  deities  of  all  sophists."  This 
was  a  comment  which  provoked  the  sarcastic  rejoinder 
— "  II  y  a  trois  savoirs  :  le  savoir-proprement  dit,  le 
savoir-faire  et  le  savoir-vivre  :  if  you  have  the  two 
last  you  do  not  want  the  first."  Among  other 
European  personages  with  whom  the  Foreign  Office 
connected  Fox,  was  the  Russian  Empress  Catherine  II.  ; 
his  advocacy  in  an  episode  presently  to  be  de- 
tailed, won  for  his  bust  in  the  Imperial  drawing-room 
a  place  between  two  of  Catherine's  historic  favourites. 
Then  came  the  French  Revolution  and  the  Whig 
enthusiasm  for  the  monarchy  of  the  people.  The 
English  statesman  disappeared  from  the  St  Petersburg 
salon.  "  It  was,"  said  Catherine,  "the  Monsieur  Fox 
of  1791  only  that  I  received  into  my  collection." 

118 


The  First  Ten  Years  of  the  Foreign  Office 

All  Fox's  finest  speeches  were  made  in  Opposition. 
Such,  in  the  department  of  foreign  policy,  were 
those  of  1791  on  the  Russian  armaments,  with  their 
fierce  attacks  on  Auckland,  as  well  as  in  1803  the 
outbursts  on  the  renewal  of  the  war.  The  Secretary 
of  State  had  brought  Sheridan  into  the  Foreign  Office 
by  way  of  doing  him  a  good  turn.  Some  years  later 
than  the  date  now  reached,  Sheridan  in  his  cups 
fiercely  abused  Fox  at  a  private  dinner-table — the 
Duke  of  Bedford's — at  Woburn.  Adair,  Fox's  most 
loyal  henchman,  took  up  the  matter,  and  was  on  the 
point  of  calling  Sheridan  out.  Harmony  was  restored 
by  another  member  of  the  company  interpolating  the 
remark — "  My  creed  is  short  and  simple  :  devotion  to 
Fox." 

The  Russian  incident  just  referred  to  took  place  in 
the  closing  years  of  the  Cleveland  Row  epoch  of  the 
Foreign  Office,  during  its  administration  by  Pitt's 
Secretary,  Lord  Carmarthen,  afterwards  Duke  of 
Leeds,  and  may  be  briefly  summarised.  Catherine  II. 
of  Russia  and  the  Emperor  Joseph  were  united  in 
hostilities  against  the  Turks.  Among  the  spoils  of 
war  that  had  fallen  to  Catherine  was  Oczakow  on  the 
Black  Sea.  The  most  active,  able  and  ambitious 
member  of  the  English  diplomatic  body  in  Eastern 
Europe  was  Joseph  Ewart.  The  son  of  a  Scotch 
clergyman,  and  brought  up  for  a  surgeon,  he  had 
travelled  with  Macdonald  of  Clanronald  ;  while  doing 
so  he  insinuated  himself  into  the  good  graces  of  the 
English  ambassador  at  Vienna,  Sir  Robert  Murray 
Keith,  who  made  Ewart  his  secretary  and  handed  him 
on  to  his  successors,  Sir  John  Stepney  and  Lord 

Dalrymple.     With  both  of  these  Ewart  did  so  well  as, 

119 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

a  little  later,  himself  to  become  the  English  represen- 
tative at  Berlin.  A  well-judged  marriage  into  a  famous 
German  family,  Wartensleben,  strengthened  his  social 
position.  He  became  a  personage  in  European 
diplomacy,  and  soon  gained  an  ascendancy  over  the 
cabinet  and  councils  of  the  Prussian  monarch  Frederick 
William  II.  The  royal  and  popular  anti-Russian 
tradition,  as  was  seen  in  an  earlier  chapter,  dates  from 
the  reign  of  George  I.  It  was  an  active  force  with 
the  British  court  and  people  in  the  year  of  the  Oczakow 
seizure.  This  explains  why  a  diplomatist  eager  to 
make  his  mark  in  his  profession  like  Ewart  should  have 
undertaken  to  secure  the  restoration  of  the  captured 
fortress  to  Turkey.  Ewart  now  became  a  principal 
agent  in  promoting  the  alliance  of  England,  Prussia, 
Holland  and  the  Porte  against  Russia  and  Austria. 

In  1790  the  Emperor  Leopold,  on  succeeding 
Joseph  II.,  concluded  the  Treaty  of  Reichenbach 
with  the  Prussian  sovereign,  Frederick  William.  By 
this  Austria  withdrew  from  the  war,  which  was  thus 
limited  to  a  struggle  between  the  Czarina  and  the 
Sultan.  Hazlitt  described  the  bark  of  the  younger 
Pitt's  diplomacy  as  being  worse  than  its  bite.  So 
far,  however,  his  policy  of  intervention  had  been 
entirely  successful.  From  the  first  he  had  impressed 
on  his  Foreign  Secretary,  Carmarthen,  that  the 
supreme  English  interest  was  peace.  No  question, 
he  said,  seemed  likely  to  arise  so  vitally  affecting  Eng- 
land as  to  justify  a  European  war.  Hence  his  general 
adherence  to  Chatham's  project  of  including  Russia 
in  the  Anglo- Prussian  alliance  for  counteracting  the 
Bourbon  Compact.  Hence,  especially  in  1788,  the 

cementing  of  England's  relations  with  Prussia.     Before 

1 20 


The  First  Ten  Years  of  the  Foreign  Office 

this  the  chief  danger  to  the  peace  of  Europe  had  been 
from  Denmark.  With  the  Anglo- Prussian  treaty  of 
1788  that  peril  disappeared.  The  Reichenbach 
treaty  practically  isolated  Russia.  By  doing  so  its 
English  negotiator,  Ewart,  incurred  the  Czarina's  deadly 
enmity.  The  stories  current  at  the  time  of  the 
Empress  Catherine  having  more  than  once  attempted 
his  murder  and  having  been  only  baffled  by  her 
Scotch  physician  Sutherland,  were  first  collected  by 
the  diarist  Nathaniel  Wraxall.  They  have  been 
pretty  conclusively  disposed  of  by  an  article  in  The 
Quarterly  Review  (vol.  Ivii.  p.  43). 

The  personal  antagonism  between  Fox  and  Pitt  in 
the  Oczakow  affair  showed  itself  in  the  former's  direct 
encouragement  to  Catherine  to  resist  the  Tory  pressure 
placed  on  her  for  restoring  her  capture  and  to  treat  with 
contempt  any  threat  of  war  if  she  refused.  England,  he 
said,  would  never  sanction  such  a  step.  He  actually  sent 
his  friend  Adair  to  St  Petersburg,  assuring  Catherine 
that  the  House  of  Commons  would  support  her  rejection 
of  the  British  Government's  demands.  The  Crimea  had 
recently  been  acquired  by  Russia  without  protest  from 
any  Power.  Oczakow  was  in  itself  of  much  less  im- 
portance, as  no  doubt  Pitt  himself  knew  perfectly  well. 
The  English  minister,  however,  had  passed  his  word 
to  co-operate  with  Prussia  in  the  lofty  mission  of 
European  peacemaker.  Thus  pledged,  he  at  first 
went  so  far  with  Prussia  as  diplomatic  methods  would 
allow.  When  these  failed  he  acknowledged  the  im- 
policy of  further  efforts.  In  reality,  he  never  probably 
in  earnest  contemplated  them.  It  was,  to  use  the 
common  phrase,  a  game  of  bluff,  played  on  the  part 

of  the  British  Foreign  Office  with  little  skill  and  with 

121 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

less  first-hand  knowledge  of  political  and  geographical 
facts.  Pitt  and  his  colleagues  pocketed  the  snub.  The 
Foxites  smiled  satisfaction. 

Themomentary  cooling  of  the  cordiality  of  the  Anglo- 
Prussian  entente  was  without  serious  results  at  the  time. 
The  under-strapperEwart  suffered  more  from  his  failure 
than  did  the  employers  who,  having  adopted  his  sugges- 
tions, now  threw  him  over.  His  last  stroke  of  profes- 
sional work  was  to  arrange  the  marriage  of  the  Duke  of 
York  to  King  Frederick  William's  daughter.  Pitt,  who 
through  his  Secretary  of  State,  Carmarthen,  now  Duke 
of  Leeds,  controlled  the  Foreign  Office,  took  exception 
to  some  details  in  Ewart's  conduct  of  the  negotiations, 
dismissed  the  envoy  from  the  public  service  on  a 
pension  of  a  thousand  a  year.  To  avoid  personally 
informing  the  Prussian  sovereign  that  the  English 
alliance  was  at  an  end,  Carmarthen  gave  up  the 
Secretaryship  of  State  to  Lord  Grenville.  Ewart 
himself  on  disappearing  into  private  life  was  gibbeted 
in  some  doggerel,  as  poor  as  were  most  political  verses 
of  the  period  when  they  did  not  happen  to  be  written 
by  a  diplomatic  bard  of  whom  we  have  already  heard, 
Charles  H  anbury  Williams.  The  particular  Whig 
ballad-monger  who  celebrated  the  shifted  Ewart  set 
his  piece  to  the  tune  of  "  Ally  Croaker ";  its  literary 
quality  may  be  judged  from  the  refrain — 

"  Give  me  a  place,  my  dearest  Billy  Pitt-o, 
If  I  can't  have  a  whole  one,  give  a  little  bit-o." 

Ewart's  expulsion  opened  the  path  of  promotion  to 
one  of  the  most  conspicuous  among  the  henchmen  who 
waited  on  the  son  of  Chatham.  This  was  Eden,  after- 
wards Lord  Auckland,  best  remembered,  perhaps, 

122 


The  First  Ten  Years  of  the  Foreign  Office 

as  the  father  of  that  Eleanor  Eden  whose  grace  and 
sweetness  kindled  the  only  grand  passion  which  Pitt  ever 
knew.  Eden  himself  was  a  great  figure  in  the  diplomatic 
salons  of  London  and  Paris.  He  owed  his  position 
chiefly  to  the  fact  of  his  being  a  first-rate  political  man 
of  business  who  had  connected  himself  by  marriage 
with  the  powerful  and  ubiquitous  Elliot  clan  ;  his  wife 
was  Sir  Gilbert  Elliot's  daughter ;  his  sister-in-law 
married  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury.  In  his  Whig 
days,  Eden  had  been  a  prime  agent  in  promoting  the 
coalition  of  Fox  and  North  under  the  Duke  of  Portland. 
Attracted  by  the  splendour  of  success  to  the  worship 
of  the  rising  star  of  Pitt,  Eden  took  an  opportunity  of 
conversationally  justifying  himself  to  Fox  ;  he  was  cut 
short  with  "Ah  yes;  but  have  you  seen  Mrs  Jordan 
in  The  Country  Girl  at  Drury  Lane  ?  " 

Such  are  the  personal  associations  that  gather 
themselves  round  the  establishment  of  the  Foreign 
Office  as  an  independent  institution.  What  were 
the  international  ideas  bequeathed  to  his  successors 
by  the  initial  Secretary  of  State  for  Foreign 
Affairs  ?  During  the  first  administrative  term  of 
Charles  James  Fox  in  the  Rockingham  Government, 
the  most  important  business  occupying  his  department 
consisted  of  the  negotiations  following  the  declaration 
of  the  United  States'  independence,  culminating  in  and 
ratified  by  the  Peace  of  Versailles  in  1783.  All 
these  transactions  were  claimed  by  Fox  for  his  own 
department.  By  the  letter  of  State  usage  and  etiquette, 
however,  our  transatlantic  settlements,  as  a  part  of 
Britain-beyond-seas,  belonged  to  the  province  of  the 
Home  Secretary,  who  referred  the  point  of  official  pre- 
rogative to  his  colleagues.  Shelburne  secured  a 

123 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

majority  in  the  cabinet ;  Fox  therefore  resigned  on 
the  1 7th  of  July.  Thus  his  first  stay  at  the  Foreign 
Office  had  been  rather  less  than  four  months.  In 
European  politics,  the  ideas  he  handed  down  to  his 
successors  were  those  which  had  come  to  him  from 
Chatham.  Even  Fox's  leaning  towards  Russia  in 
1791  found  its  precedent  not  only  in  Chatham's  general 
European  views,  but  in  his  unsuccessful  attempt  in 
1766  to  form  a  Northern  alliance  between  Russia, 
Prussia  and  Great  Britain  ;  apropos  of  this  he  wrote  to 
Shelburne — "  Your  Lordship  sees  I  am  quite  a  Russ." 
A  Continental  alliance  to  balance  the  Bourbon  League 
was  forced  on  Fox,  as  it  had  been  on  Chatham,  by  the 
foreign  policy  of  the  two  French  ministers  that  directed 
the  conspiracy  against  England  in  the  last  half  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  The  chief  author  in  France  of  the 
Family  Compact  of  1761  had  been  Choiseul,  whose  as- 
cendancy with  Louis  XV.  continued  till  1 770,  when  he  fell 
a  victim  to  Madame  du  Barry's  intrigues.  The  guiding 
principle  of  Choiseul's  statesmanship  under  Louis  XV., 
accommodated  to  the  new  circumstances  of  the  time, 
animated  the  international  methods  of  Vergennes  in 
the  next  reign.  Only  within  the  last  few  years  have 
the  authors  already  mentioned  in  a  footnote  to  an 
earlier"chapter  revealed  the  exact  relations  between  the 
elder  Pitt  and  the  Family  Compact  of  1761.  Simi- 
larly the  precise  methods  which  Vergennes  used 
against  England  were  imperfectly  understood  till  the 
appearance,  in  1889,  of  Dmol~s  France  et  les  £tats 
Unis.  In  and  after  1774,  Vergennes  employed  all 
his  energies  and  all  his  influence  with  Louis  XVI.  to 
counterwork  the  restraining  counsel  of  Turgot. 

Surely,  he  pleaded,  the  descendant  of  Louis  XIV.  and 

124 


The  First  Ten  Years  of  the  Foreign  Office 

the  great  nation  he  ruled  would  not  so  far  disgrace 
themselves  as  to  throw  away  the  facilities  provided  by 
the  American  War  for  a  French  attack  on  Great  Britain. 
Opportunism  and  diplomacy  were  as  much  convertible 
terms  in  the  eighteenth  century  as  they  had  been  in 
the  age  of  Machiavelli  or  of  Alberoni.  No  surprise, 
therefore,  was  felt  by  Fox  when,  a  little  later,  Vergennes 
himself  proposed  that  England  and  France  should  co- 
operate against  Russian  aggression  in  the  Near  East. 

The  reasons  that  closed  our  first  Foreign  Secre- 
tary's ears  against  any  suggestion  of  united  action 
abroad  by  the  two  Governments  were  those  for 
which  he  condemned  Pitt's  Commercial  Treaty  of 
1786.  That  instrument  and  the  discussions  caused 
by  it  crucially  illustrate  the  fundamental  differences 
of  foreign  policy  between  Pitt  and  Fox.  They 
also  show  incidentally,  but  most  instructively,  the  dis- 
tinction to  be  drawn  in  the  Whig  attitude  towards 
monarchical  and  republican  France  respectively. 
The  idea  of  such  a  treaty  originated,  in  1769, 
with  Shelburne.  That  was  enough  to  call  forth 
the  opposition  of  Fox  and  of  the  other  Whigs. 
The  notion  of  our  nearest  Continental  neighbour  being 
our  natural  and  inevitable  enemy  had  been  combated 
by  no  one  more  strongly  than  by  Shelburne  during  the 
negotiations  for  the  Peace  of  Versailles.  For  in  1783 
the  French  ministers  had  been  ready  to  conclude  with  the 
English  an  arrangement  which  would  practically  have 
secured  Free  Trade  between  the  two  countries.  Its 
formal  ratification  in  1 786  was  effected  by  Eden's  agency 
and  constitutes  Pitt's  chief  achievement  in  legislation.* 

*  From  the  English  trading  privileges  in  India  recognised  by  this 
treaty,  it  is  known  as  the  Bengal  Convention. 

125 


The   Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

A  compact  of  the  same  kind  with  Russia  in  1785  had 
successfully  provided  English  commerce  with  a  valu- 
able opening,  and  had  made  Archangel,  from  a  little 
village,  a  prosperous  business  centre.  As  regards 
France,  still  in  1786  ruled  by  Louis  XVI.,  Fox 
grounded  his  antagonism  to  Chatham's  son  on  the 
principles  of  Chatham  himself.  It  was  not  the  French 
Government,  but  the  absolutism  and  the  aggression  of 
Bourbonism  with  which  there  could  be  no  truce.  It 
was  with  legitimist  France  that  Pitt  and  Shelburne, 
to  Fox's  great  disgust,  negotiated  Free  Trade. 
Of  revolutionary  France  Fox  could  write  to  his 
friend  Fitzpatrick,  going  abroad — "  If  I  do  not  see 
you  before  you  go,  make  my  compliments  to  the 
Duke  of  Orleans,  whose  conduct  seems  to  have  been 
perfect,  and  tell  him  and  his  friends  that  all  my 
prepossessions  against  French  connections  with  this 
country  will  be  at  an  end  and  most  part  of  my  system 
of  European  politics  will  be  altered  if  this  Revolution 
has  the  consequences  that  I  expect." 

These  anticipations  of  the  benefits  to  mankind  to  be 
conferred  by  kingless  France  were  not  peculiar  to 
Fox  and  others  who  shared  his  political  principles. 
They  were  in  the  atmosphere  of  the  time,  and  were 
shared  by  him  with  the  philosophic  S.  T.  Coleridge, 
the  future  Tory  Southey,  and  by  the  devout  Words- 
worth. Nor,  it  must  be  remembered,  was  it  till  1 791  that 
by  the  Avignon  massacres,  which  the  National  Assembly 
instigated,  that  outside  Paris  revolutionary  France 
first  showed  her  blood-stained  claws.  So  too,  as  is  well 
pointed  out  in  a  recent  life  of  Charles  Fox,*  republican 

*  By  J.  L.  Le  B.  Hammond,  to  whom  and  to  whose  work  let  me 
acknowledge  many  obligations. 

126 


The  First  Ten  Years  of  the  Foreign  Office 

France,  during  the  lifetime  of  Fox,  did  not,  as  Bourbon 
France  had  done,  sweep  the  whole  world's  horizon  on 
the  lookout  for  ground  of  quarrel  against  England. 

The  great  act  of  political  proselytism  at  the  hands 
of  the  French  faction,  which  compelled  Pitt's  inter- 
vention in  the  affairs  of  Holland,  had  occurred  in  1787, 
while  France  in  name  was  still  under  a  monarchy.  In 
that  year  the  French  or  republican  party,  that  had 
always  existed  at  The  Hague,  expelled  Prince  William 
of  Orange,  the  representative  of  Dutch  monarchy,  in 
the  hope  of  re-establishing  the  federal  constitution  of 
the  united  provinces.  Pitt's  foreign  policy,  perpetu- 
ating that  of  his  father,  had  already  secured  Prussia  as 
England's  ally.  The  co-operation  of  the  two  Powers 
now  effected,  without  a  blow  being  struck,  Prince 
William's  reinstatement  under  a  joint  Anglo- Prussian 
guarantee  of  securing  his  House  and  his  dominions. 
Nor  was  Pitt  less  successful  in  his  diplomatic  dealings 
with  the  revolutionary  leaders  of  the  French  National 
Assembly  in  1789-90.  Spain  had  molested  an  English 
settlement  in  Nootka  —  afterwards  St  George's 
Sound,  Vancouver  Island.  England  was  about  to 
assert  her  right  in  arms  when  Charles  III.  of  Spain 
appealed  to  his  royal  brother,  Louis  XVI.  of  France,  for 
the  military  aid  to  which  he  was  entitled  by  the  terms  of 
the  1761  Family  Compact.  The  French  king  and  his 
ministers,  Montmorin  and  Calonne,  desired  nothing 
more  than  to  deflect  the  Revolution  from  its  course 
and  weaken  it  by  opening  hostilities  with  England. 
The  declared  republicans  in  the  National  Assembly  at 
once  used  their  majority  to  deprive  the  sovereign  of 
the  power  of  declaring  war  without  its  consent.  Peace 

with  England  was  the  policy  on  which  the  National 

127 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

Assembly  had  resolved.  The  vote,  given  after  a  hot 
debate,  baffled  the  Bourbon  conspiracy  for  the  younger 
Pitt  as  effectually  as  it  had  been  counterworked  by 
the  resources  and  ascendancy  of  his  father.  Is  it  not 
reasonably  certain  that,  had  he  been  in  office  and 
dealing  with  the  same  difficulties,  the  line  taken  by 
Fox  would  have  been  exactly  that  which  Pitt  followed  ? 
So  long  indeed  as  the  unvarying  tradition  and  practice 
of  the  British  Foreign  Office  were  to  maintain  the 
European  equilibrium,  our  statesmanship  abroad  could 
not  but  conform  to  one  pattern.  From  the  Peace 
of  Westphalia  to  that  of  Utrecht,  and  more  than  a 
century  afterwards,  the  standard  of  orthodoxy  in 
international  statesmanship  accepted  and  enforced  by 
the  managers  of  our  affairs  abroad,  whatever  their 
party  colour,  was  the  balance  of  power.  Foreign 
politics  began  to  be  popularised  by  Chatham.  The 
means  employed  might  differ  ;  the  object  to  be  pursued 
did  not  change  with  successive  administrations.  The 
pre-eminence  and  preponderation  of  any  single  state 
must  be  a  standing  threat  to  the  tranquillity  and  welfare 
of  the  entire  comity  of  nations.  That  belief  had 
explained  the  elder  Pitt's  determination  to  make  and 
at  any  cost  to  keep  the  alliance  with  Prussia.  It 
explained  on  different  occasions  his  rapprochement  to 
St  Petersburg  as  well  as  to  Berlin.  It  explains  also 
the  diplomatic  changes  of  front  executed  by  the 
younger  Pitt,  as  by  his  colleagues  or  his  opponents. 
Reference  has  been  made  above  to  Frederick  the 
Great's  remark  about  the  mischievous  effects  of  the 
party-system  upon  English  policy  abroad.  Up  to  the 
time  now  reached  such  consequences  will  not  easily  be 

found.     Moreover,  the  younger  Pitt  and  Fox  belonged 

128 


The  First  Ten  Years  of  the  Foreign  Office 

by  name  to  the  same  party,  that  in  which  Chatham 
himself  had  been  reared.  Walpole  was  its  leader. 
The  earliest  Tories  never  went  by  that  name.  They 
were  simply,  in  Walpole's  phrase,  "the  boys" — the 
patriots  who,  dissenting  from  their  leader  chiefly  on 
the  point  of  subsidies  to  foreign  troops  or  Hessian  and 
Hanoverian  soldiers  in  the  royal  employ,  protested  that 
their  secession  from  Walpole  arose  from  his  betrayal 
of  the  national  principles  which  they  identified  with 
Whiggism.  The  elder  Pitt  united  for  a  time  with 
Walpole's  successor  in  the  Whig  leadership,  the  Duke 
of  Newcastle.  His  great  administration  was  that 
titularly  headed  by  Newcastle's  former  colleague,  the 
Duke  of  Devonshire.  When  the  younger  Pitt  spoke 
of  chastising  Fox  for  his  political  delinquencies,  he 
implied  that  his  opponent  was  a  Whig  gone  wrong — 
"I'll  un-whig  the  gentleman."  No  party  differences 
therefore  kept  the  two  men  asunder.  They  both  of 
them  continued  at  the  same  time  to  be  members  of 
Brooks'  Club,  the  social  palladium  of  the  party.  They 
had  been  within  an  ace  of  politically  coming  together 
before.  Their  mutual  co-operation  still  remained  on 
the  cards.  It  was  never  nearer  than  under  the 
Addington  administration,  simultaneously  attacked  by 
Foxites  and  Pittites  during  1 804.  One  night  in  that 
year  Pitt  and  his  friend  Long,  going  home  together 
from  the  House,  passed  the  door  of  Brooks'  Club.  "  I 
have  not,"  said  Pitt  to  his  friend,  "been  in  that  place 
these  twenty  years — since,  in  fact,  the  Coalition  days. 
Now,  however,  I  think  I  will  go  in  and  sup."  Dreading 
above  all  things  a  friendly  meeting  between  his  chief 
and  Fox,  who  probably  was  already  at  the  club,  Long 

quickly  rejoined,  "  I  think  you  had  better  not."     Pitt 
i  129 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

allowed  himself  to  be  dissuaded.  The  two  political 
sections  which  might  then  easily  have  come  together 
were  finally  kept  apart.  The  French  Revolution  and 
its  world-wide  political  consequences,  converting  the 
Chatham  Whigs  into  reactionaries,  created  the  new 
Toryism  with  a  foreign  policy  separating  it,  more 
sharply  than  was  done  by  its  domestic  differences, 
from  the  old  Whig  tradition. 

Even  as  it  was,  the  conduct  of  the  English 
Foreign  Office  during  the  period  of  Pitt's  supremacy, 
up  till  1791,  showed  no  break  of  continuity  with  the 
principles  of  which  it  might  have  been  managed  by 
Fox  himself.  In  regard  to  all  that  had  yet  happened 
in  France,  Pitt  paid  no  heed  to  the  reactionary  cries 
and  counsels  of  his  personal  supporters  or  his  private 
and  political  friends.  He  remained  as  superior  to 
mere  party  consideration  as  in  like  circumstances 
would  have  been  Chatham  himself.  He  was 
pledged  to  a  policy  of  neutrality  towards  the  factions 
of  which  England's  nearest  Continental  neighbour 
had  become  the  prey.  Absolute  non-intervention  in 
the  politics  of  France,  whether  within  or  outside  her 
border,  was  the  line  he  had  laid  down.  In  adhering  to 
it,  he  carried  with  him  the  court,  king  and  Parliament. 
Fox,  as  leader  of  the  Opposition,  was  in  constant  and 
confidential  communication  with  the  French  Revolu- 
tionary chiefs  ;  he  pressed  on  them  moderation  and 
reserve  as  absolutely  necessary,  if  they  were  not  hope- 
lessly to  discredit  their  cause  with  their  English  well- 
wishers.  While  Fox  was  thus  appealing  directly  to 
Barnave,  there  called  one  day  at  the  London  Foreign 
Office  the  Chevalier  de  la  Bintinaye,  with  a  letter 
from  the  Comte  de  Provence  to  George  III.,  solicit- 

130 


The  First  Ten  Years  of  the  Foreign  Office 

ing  help   for  the    French   monarchists.     The  answer 
taken  home  by  the  French  emissary  did  but  emphati- 
cally reaffirm  the  instructions  already  repeatedly  con- 
veyed to  Gower,  our  ambassador  in  Paris,  by  Pitt's 
Foreign  Minister,  Grenville :   His    Britannic  Majesty 
had  inflexibly  resolved  not  only  to  take  no  part  in 
supporting  or  opposing  the  measures  adopted  by  other 
Powers  towards  France,  but  to  avoid  the  expression 
of  any  opinion  of  the  subject  to  his  European  allies. 
The  allusion  here  was   of  course  to  Prussia.     That 
state  was  prepared  to  co-operate  with  the  Emperor 
Leopold  on   behalf  of  French    royalty  and  royalists. 
To  Pitt,  the   Anglo- Prussian   alliance  seemed  of  the 
first    importance.     He    was,    however,    prepared    to 
forfeit  it   rather   than   to    run    the   risk   of  letting  it 
embroil  him  with  France.     Not  once,  but  repeatedly 
were  the  English  representatives — at  Berlin,  Ewart,  at 
Vienna,  Keith — instructed  to  say  that  England  could  in 
no  circumstances  interfere,  unless  indeed  the  interests 
of  King  George's  subjects  should  be  directly  affected 
by  what  was  taking  place  in  Paris.     For  the  English 
minister    to    hold    entirely   aloof    from    the    Pilnitz 
declaration  of  the  Austrian  and  Prussian  sovereigns, 
actively  to  befriend  on    the  first   chance  the  French 
monarch,  was  for  the  moment  to  isolate  his  country. 
By  accepting  this  risk  Pitt  became  the  first  English 
statesman  who,   reversing  the   tradition   of  centuries, 
took  his  stand  upon   the  policy  of  non-intervention 
at  any  cost.       To    form    one    coalition  after  another 
in  Germany,  to  subsidise  allies  with  millions  in  free 
gifts,    or   aid    them  with  profuse   loans  until  all    the 
Powers   in  our   pay   were   successively  defeated  and 
many  converted  into  the  tools  of  the  enemy,  such,  in 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

outline,  is  the  conventional  account  of  Pitt's  foreign 
policy  during  this  period.  So  far  as  the  French 
Revolution  had  a  constructive  aim,  to  secure  popular 
liberties,  Pitt  did  not  yield  to  Fox  in  wishing  it  well. 
His  first  diplomatic  encounter  with  the  National 
Assembly  about  the  Nootka  Sound  settlement  left  him 
little  reason  personally  to  regret  the  prospect  of  the 
Bourbon  monarchy  being  replaced  by  the  French  Re- 
public. How  far  the  English  minister's  hope  of 
satisfactory  relations  with  kingless  France  was  to  have 
a  fulfilment  in  fact  will  now  be  seen. 

Down  to  1791,  the  diplomatic  movements  preceding 
the  outbreak  of  the  revolutionary  war  were  between  the 
French  Government  on  the  one  hand  and  the  Emperor 
Leopold  and  King  Frederick  William  II.  of  Prussia  on 
the  other.  On  6th  July  1 791,  Marie  Antoinette,  then  at 
Padua,  had  addressed  to  her  Imperial  brother  of  Austria 
an  appeal  for  protection  from  the  possibilities  of  re- 
publican violence.  Six  weeks  later  the  Austrian 
Kaiser  and  the  Prussian  king  met  at  Pilnitz  in 
Saxony.  The  two  sovereigns  formally  decided,  first, 
that  the  position  of  the  King  of  France  had  become 
a  matter  of  European  concern  ;  secondly,  that  they 
would  themselves  actively  join  in  European  interven- 
tion on  behalf  of  the  threatened  dynasty  by  furnishing 
a  force  to  operate  on  the  French  frontier.  A  menace 
so  distinct  as  this  undoubtedly  supplied  the  French 
Assembly  with  a  clear  case  of  war  against  Leopold 
and  Frederick  William.  The  two  crowned  heads, 
in  sight  of  all  the  world,  had  thrown  down  the 
challenge.  Why  was  it  not  taken  up  by  the  citizen- 
patriots,  who  saw  in  foreign  strife  an  agency  favourable 
for  establishing  a  democratic  polity  after  their  own 

132 


The  First  Ten  Years  of  the  Foreign  Office 

heart  ?  For  the  simple  reason  that  the  Pilnitz  procla- 
mation was  not  taken  seriously,  but  was  regarded  as  a 
threat  and  nothing  more.  Had  not  also  the  sovereigns 
who  made  it  recently  almost  come  to  blows  over  the 
Eastern  question  ?  What,  therefore,  less  probable  than 
that  they  should  be  unanimous  against  France  now  ? 
Moreover,  the  French  Assembly,  well  served  by  its 
agents  abroad,  professed  to  have  learned  that  even 
anxiety  for  the  safety  of  his  sister,  the  French  Queen, 
was  not  likely  to  be  held  by  the  emperor  sufficient 
reason  for  making  an  enemy  of  the  whole  French 
nation.  The  result,  therefore,  of  the  Pilnitz  conference 
had  been  received  in  France  with  contempt  rather 
than  with  indignation.  The  stultification  of  the 
Austrian  and  Prussian  sovereigns  was  completed  a 
few  weeks  later,  when  Louis  XIV.  publicly  accepted 
the  Constitution  prescribed  to  him  by  the  National 
Assembly.  The  royalists  as  a  party  protested. 
Louis  only  replied  that  a  king's  first  duty  was  to 
identify  his  own  will  with  that  of  his  people.  It 
therefore  seemed  worth  while  for  the  French 
Assembly  to  use  its  diplomatic  resources  in  the  way 
most  likely  to  divide  its  two  royal  antagonists.  When 
these  had  failed,  the  diplomatic  scene  changed  to 
England. 

On  the  eve  of  the  tremendous  duel  between  France 
and  Prussia,  in  1870,  a  veteran  servant  of  the  English 
Foreign  Office  described  the  European  horizon  as 
absolutely  cloudless.  So,  in  1792,  Pitt  had  never 
known  a  time  when,  from  the  situation  of  Europe,  we 
might  more  reasonably  expect  fifteen  years'  peace. 
That  indeed  was  not  the  view  of  a  professional  diplo- 
matist like  Auckland,  or  of  a  political  philosopher  like 

133 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

Burke.  Both  of  these  ominously  shook  their  heads 
when  they  found  men  like  the  English  Prime  Minister 
"think  no  more  of  the  change  of  Spanish  diplomacy 
or  of  the  death  of  the  Emperor  Leopold  than  of  the 
removal  of  a  Dutch  burgomaster."  The  Girondin 
ministry  in  the  French  Assembly  secured  the  declara- 
tion of  war  against  Austria  and  Prussia  in  the  April  of 
1792.  Before  the  actual  rupture  the  centre  of  French 
diplomatic  gravity  had  for  some  time  shifted  to  London. 
At  the  beginning  of  that  year  the  stream  of  communi- 
cations begins  to  flow  between  the  English  and 
French  capitals.  January  opens  with  the  recall  of 
Barthelemy,  the  ehargt  d'affaires  at  the  French 
Embassy  on  the  Thames.  Hirsinger,  who  replaces  him, 
is  at  first  delighted  with  his  reception.  Nothing  could 
be  more  charming  than  the  cordiality  of  Grenville  and 
his  staff.  Presently  come  misgivings.  After  all,  the 
islanders,  he  fears,  do  not  love  and  trust  France  as 
they  ought.  Not  only  does  he  see  everywhere 
English  commerce  displacing  French,  but  every  day 
increases  the  investment  of  French  capital  in  English 
funds.  Perfidious  Albion,  he  suspects,  will  not  rest 
content  till  her  flag  floats  over  Mauritius  and  Reunion. 
As  for  His  Britannic  Majesty,  George  III.,  it  looks  as 
if  he  were  secretly  intriguing  with  the  Emperor 
Francis  II.  against  France.  What,  too,  if  Spain 
should  join  the  conspiracy  on  a  promise  of  help  with 
the  thirty  or  forty  thousand  troops  controlled  by  the 
English  king  as  Elector  of  Hanover?  But,  it  may 
be  said,  is  not  England  now  governed  more  really  and 
absolutely  by  the  families  of  Pitt  and  Grenville  com- 
bined than  by  the  House  of  Hanover?  Obviously, 
therefore,  the  Prime  Minister  will  make  the  cousin 

134 


The  First  Ten  Years  of  the  Foreign  Office 

who  is  his  Foreign  Secretary  an  instrument  of  peace. 
For,  to  weaken  France  by  an  actively  hostile  combina- 
tion would  be  to  prevent  her  helping  forward  Pitt's 
policy  of  balancing  the  Prussian  and  Russian  power. 
Hirsinger  therefore  still  hopes  that  England's  antagon- 
ism to  France  is  only  that  of  a  trade  rival.  Before 
January  is  out,  another  diplomatic  reconnaissance  has 
been  ordered  by  the  French  foreign  Minister,  De 
Lessart.  This  was  conducted  by  two  eminent 
amateurs  in  diplomacy,  neither  of  them  officially 
accredited  to  the  English  court.  One  of  the  pair  was 
a  bishop  of  Louis  XVI.'s  appointment,  transformed 
by  his  training  from  a  cleric  into  Napoleon's  future 
Foreign  Minister.  An  early  accident,  causing  lifelong 
lameness,  had  disqualified  Talleyrand  for  the  army. 
Choosing  the  Church  for  a  career,  he  had  prepared 
himself  for  the  bishopric  of  Autun  by  associating 
with  the  primates  of  Narbonne,  of  Toulouse  and 
other  divines  who  occupied  the  box  at  Madame  de 
Montespan's  private  theatre  reserved  for  le  clergd  un 
pen  dissipd.  He  had  fitted  himself  for  republican 
employment  by  proposing  in  the  Tiers  Etat,  loth 
October  1789,  the  confiscation  of  church  property  as  a 
cure  for  national  bankruptcy.  He  had  long  been  on 
the  lookout  for  scandals  that  might  tell  against  the 
monarchy.  The  use  made  by  him  of  what  he  had 
picked  up  in  the  affair  of  the  diamond  necklace,  un- 
doubtedly gave  a  fresh  impetus  to  the  revolutionary 
spirit.  Scenting  blood  in  the  republican  atmosphere, 
he  welcomed  the  chance  of  employment  abroad,  in 
England  first,  in  America  afterwards.  While  he  was 
yet  only  in  training  for  his  position  as  a  chief  minister 
of  the  Directory,  and  of  the  Consulate  before  the 

135 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

Empire,  Talleyrand  showed  himself  the  first  to  under- 
stand the  growing  connection  between  diplomacy  and 
finance — the  Chancery  and  the  City.  The  London 
house  of  the  Frankfort  Rothschilds  was  first  esta- 
blished in  1798,  six  years  after  Talleyrand's  earliest 
English  mission.  Some  time,  however,  before  that, 
through  their  British  agents  the  Van  Nottens,  the 
Rothschilds  did  business  for  and  with  the  English 
Government.  They,  like  other  financial  rulers  of 
nations,  had  of  course  a  connection  with  Talleyrand, 
who  had  been  among  the  earliest  to  estimate  at  its  true 
value  the  new  force  in  international  politics.  A  man 
so  far  ahead  in  his  ideas  of  the  aristocratic  caste  still 
dominating  diplomacy  was,  of  course,  denounced  by  the 
priesthood  as  an  apostate,  by  the  nobility  as  a  traitor, 
and,  in  the  same  strain,  he  was  taunted  with  being  "a 
greedy  stock-jobber,  hand-in-glove  with  the  Jew,  in- 
tended by  nature  for  the  rabbi  of  a  usurer's  synagogue 
rather  than  a  priest  in  a  Christian  church."  The 
English  d£but  of  Talleyrand's  ducal  colleague  did  not 
promise  well.  The  Due  de  Biron  had  been  in 
England  before  and  left  unpaid  bills  behind ;  he  no 
sooner  touched  British  soil  again  than  a  sheriffs 
officer,  tapping  him  on  the  shoulder,  conducted  him  to 
a  sponging-house  ;  for,  being  a  diplomatist  unattached, 
he  could  not  plead  an  ambassador's  immunity  from 
arrest  for  debt. 

The  most  practical  part  of  Talleyrand's  mission  had 
to  do  with  money.  France,  Talleyrand  was  instructed 
to  say,  loyal  in  everything  to  the  terms  of  the  Utrecht 
settlement,  would  not  attack  Austria  unless  compelled 
in  the  way  of  self-defence. 

On  the  strength  of  this  explanation  an  Anglo- 

136 


The  First  Ten  Years  of  the  Foreign  Office 

French   alliance  would,  it  was  hoped,  prove   practic- 
able,  on    the    further    understanding    that    England 
should    guarantee    a     French    loan     of    ,£3,000,000 
or    ,£4,000,000,    to    be    secured    by    the    island    of 
Tobago.     Having   submitted  these   proposals  to   the 
English   Government,  Talleyrand  waited   a  fortnight 
for    an    answer.       Even    then    ministerial    divisions 
indefinitely  postponed  a  reply.     As  Talleyrand  gradu- 
ally found  out,  Pitt,  with  his  friend  Dundas  and  his 
Foreign  Minister  Grenville,  favoured  the  French  offer. 
The  other  members  of  the  Cabinet  were  dead  against 
it.     Talleyrand's   execution   of  his  first   international 
commission   was  to   close   neither   the  affair  nor  this 
his  earliest   connection  with  England.      The  French 
Government  had  long  wished  to  be  represented  at  the 
Court  of  St  James  in  a  manner  worthy  both  of  France 
and    of  England.     Hirsinger,    like    Barthelemy,    was 
merely   a    temporary   envoy.     At   last   an   eminently 
suitable  selection  had  been  made  in  the  person  of  the 
young  Marquis  de  Chauvelin.     The  new  ambassador 
reached    London  on  27th  April    1792.     He  came  as 
practically  and  especially  the  nominee  of  the  Girondins, 
who  then  dominated  the  National  Assembly ;    it  was 
their  policy  to  consolidate  French  republicanism  by  war 
and   to  detach  England  from  a   combination   against 
France.     A  week  before  the  rupture  of  France  with 
her    neighbours,    Chauvelin    had    received    elaborate 
instructions  for  his  English  mission.     His  first  object 
was  to  obtain  a  pledge  from  England  of  strict  neutrality 
in  the  coming  war,  should  France  find  herself  compelled 
to  divert  operations  from  her  own  frontier  into  the 
Austrian    Netherlands.     At    the   same   time   he   was 
emphatically  to  disclaim  for  his  country  any  thought  of 

137 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

territorial  extension  or  any  wish  to  interfere  in  the 
concerns  of  its  neighbours.  The  world's  peace 
depended  on  the  European  balance  of  power  being 
preserved.  The  excessive  increase  of  Russian  or 
German  strength  could  not  but  eventually  prove 
fatal  to  equilibrium  and  to  tranquillity.  As  regards 
Germany  too,  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  re- 
modelling, if  not  the  disappearance,  of  the  Empire 
itself  was  a  contingency  that  events  might  easily  pre- 
cipitate. For  Holland  to  interfere  with  any  French 
strategical  movements  because  they  seemed  to  threaten 
her  borders,  must  make  France  her  enemy  instead  of, 
as  at  present,  her  friend  ;  it  must  also  involve  the  down- 
fall of  the  House  of  Orange.  Then  had  the  English 
Government  weighed  the  cost  at  home  of  a  collision 
with  the  National  Assembly  abroad  ?  Ireland  cordially 
detested  the  British  connection  ;  she  would  welcome 
her  French  deliverer  with  open  arms.  On  the  other 
hand  Chauvelin  was  to  insist  upon  the  advantages  to 
England  of  an  alliance  with  France.  The  first  of 
England's  interests  was  of  course  material.  Good  : 
supposing  Spain  to  yield  to  the  temptation  of  joining 
the  Empire,  instead  of  the  country  from  which  she  was 
separated  by  the  Pyrenees,  what  more  easy  than  for 
England,  France,  and  England's  kinsfolk  across  the 
Atlantic  to  divide  amongst  themselves  the  spoils  of 
Spanish  trade  in  all  quarters  of  the  world  ?  The 
modest  cost  to  England  of  the  boons  a  generous  France 
waited  to  confer  would  be  that  already  suggested 
by  Talleyrand,  a  British  guarantee  of  a  few  millions' 
loan,  against  which  the  West  Indian  island  of  Tobago 
would  be  held  by  the  Government  of  George  III. 

Talleyrand  himself  was  now,  nominally  as  private 

138 


The  First  Ten  Years  of  the  Foreign  Office 

secretary,  really  as  unofficial  colleague,  co-operating 
with  Chauvelin.  In  his  native  land  Talleyrand  was 
equally  disliked  by  the  royalists  and  the  republicans. 
Public  opinion,  however,  agreed  with  Dumouriez, 
during  his  short  tenure  of  the  Foreign  Office,  that 
Talleyrand  was  the  one  Frenchman  pre-eminently 
qualified  for  doing  business  with  England.  In  London 
the  unpopularity  of  his  Girondin  employers  often  seemed 
to  be  reflected  upon  Talleyrand  himself.  Gradu- 
ally, however,  he  lived  down  much  of  these  prejudices. 
The  narrative  of  Dumont  conclusively  proves  him 
honestly  and  steadily,  in  the  teeth  not  only  of  abuse 
but  of  actual  insults,  to  have  pursued  his  object  of 
keeping  France  and  England  at  peace.  The  truth  of 
Dumont's  vindication  was  to  some  extent  anticipated  by 
impartial  English  judges  during  Talleyrand's  lifetime. 
It  is  one  of  the  ironies  of  history  that  a  measure, 
carried  by  Pitt  to  promote  friendly  relations  between 
the  two  countries,  indirectly  should  have  furnished  a 
pretext  for  the  convention's  declaration  of  war  against 
England  (ist  February  1793).  Pitt's  commercial 
treaty  of  1786  in  the  interests  of  international  trade 
and  friendly  intercourse  had  secured  to  all  French 
subjects  unfettered  liberty  of  entrance  to  England. 
The  Alien  Act  of 'seven  years  later,  it  was  complained, 
cancelled  the  earlier  treaty  privileges,  or  hampered 
them  by  conditions  depriving  them  of  all  value.  By 
their  legislation  in  1793,  Pitt  and  Grenville  obliged  all 
foreigners  on  landing  in  this  country  to  declare  the 
purpose  of  their  visit,  to  register  their  names,  and  to 
obtain  English  passports  on  their  departure  if  they 
wished  to  return.  At  the  same  time  was  forbidden 
the  exportation  from  England  to  French  ports  of  all 

139 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

materials  of  war,  as  well  as  of  corn,  whether  grown  in 
this  country  or  elsewhere.  As  will  presently  be  seen, 
the  real  diplomatic  causes  of  the  breach  between 
France  and  England  lay  in  the  conduct  not  of  the 
English  Government,  but  of  the  French.  Great 
Britain  had  repeatedly  committed  herself  to  maintain 
the  independence  of  Holland  and  Belgium.  Patiently 
as  he  bore  with  them,  Pitt  was  at  last  forced  into 
recognising  that  the  diplomatic  and  military  action  of 
the  Convention  constituted  a  menace  to  his  Dutch  ally 
of  which  he  could  not  remain  a  passive  spectator.  And 
these  acts  had  gone  hand-in-hand  with  the  French 
ambassador's  repeated  interferences  in  Pitt's  domestic 
administration,  as  well  as  with  the  appeals  addressed 
by  the  French  Convention  to  the  English  and  to 
other  peoples  to  rise  against  their  Government. 
The  incitements  to  insurrection  were,  after  a  fashion, 
explained  by  the  Paris  Foreign  Office.  As  regards 
Holland  no  explanation  was  offered.  The  only 
interests  served  by  Chauvelin  during  his  ambassador- 
ship in  England  were  those  of  the  British  administra- 
tion, which  he  provoked  into  war.  In  the  home  politics 
of  the  country  where  he  had  resided,  his  diplomacy 
gave  the  impetus  which  at  the  beginning  of  the  Revolu- 
tionary struggle  rallied  round  Pitt  all  those  sections 
of  the  Whig  party  that  had  previously  opposed  him ; 
by  so  doing  they  placed  him  at  the  head  of  an  un- 
divided Parliament  and  an  absolutely  united  people. 

As  Lord  Rosebery  has  made  abundantly  clear 
in  his  interesting  and  valuable  monograph,  so  far 
from  Pitt  having  been  bullied  into  war  by  George  III., 
he  infused  much  of  the  spirit  of  his  own  patient  for- 
bearance into  his  royal  master.  He  had  always 

140 


The  First  Ten  Years  of  the  Foreign  Office 

believed  that  after  a  time  France  would  recover  from 
the  disturbances  of  her  system  and  would  tranquilly 
resume  her  place  in  the  comity  of  nations.  The  chief 
source  of  his  misgivings,  down  to  the  very  eve  of  the 
European  convulsion,  was  Russia. 

In  1788,  the  year  before  the  States-General  opened, 
while  France  was  as  yet  monarchical  and  peaceful,  Pitt, 
co-operating  with  the  Austrian  minister  Kaunitz  and  the 
Prussian  Hertzberg,  had  expended  much  labour  in  form- 
ing an  alliance  with  Holland.  Ever  since  his  failure  in 
the  affair  of  Oczakow,  he  had  looked  uneasily  at  the 
armed  and  aggressive  form  of  the  Giant  of  the 
North.  Precaution  against  menace  from  that  quarter 
formed  the  sole  motive  of  the  agreement  entered  into 
by  Austria,  England,  Holland  and  Prussia ;  it  took 
its  name  from  the  royal  summer  residence  near 
Apeldorn.  The  preliminaries  of  the  Loo  Convention 
were  signed  at  the  Loo,  i3th  June  1788;  the  full 
treaty  was  executed  and  ratified  at  Berlin  two  months 
later  (i3th  August).  In  addition  to  the  specific 
Dutch  responsibilities  imposed  on  England  by  the 
Loo  Convention,  there  existed  general  ground  of 
international  law  on  which  not  only  England  but  all 
Europe  might  have  resented  the  violation  of  Dutch 
neutrality  now  contemplated  by  France.  In  1784,  the 
Government  of  Louis  XVI.  had  protested  against  the 
opening  of  the  Scheldt  by  Austria,  who  then  held  the 
Low  Countries.  From  the  French  point  of  view  that 
act  constituted  a  wanton  violation  of  the  rights  of  the 
United  Provinces  established  by  the  treaty  of  1731. 
The  objection  was  allowed,  and  Austria  desisted  from 
her  attempt.  Now,  after  an  interval  of  eight  years, 

republican  France   deliberately   violated  international 

141  ' 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

usage  by  that  very  aggression  to  prevent  which 
monarchical  France,  in  the  common  interest  of  Europe, 
had  risked  war  with  the  Austrian  Empire.  Chauvelin 
had  come  to  England  as  representative  of  the  King 
of  France.  Strictly,  therefore,  his  mission  had  ended 
when  Louis  XVI.  ceased  to  govern ;  after  that 
Grenville  and  Pitt  addressed  their  protests  against 
the  French  Government  not  to  the  French 
Ambassador  in  London,  but  to  the  Paris  Foreign  Office. 

The  practical  dethronement  of  Louis  XVI.  in  1792 
left  France  without  the  Government  which  had 
accredited  Chauvelin  to  England.  The  king's  execu- 
tion, 3ist  January  1792,  removed  from  the  French 
capital  even  the  shadow  of  responsible  administration. 
Brissot's  report  to  the  Convention,  on  jrd  February, 
formally  opened  the  state  of  war  between  Great 
Britain  and  France.  Here  we  are  only  concerned  with 
the  diplomatic  pleas  and  preliminaries  of  the  rupture. 
These  have  already  been  given  in  sufficient  detail. 

Passing  to  the  more  general  treaty  violations 
that  necessarily  closed  diplomatic  relations  between 
England  and  France,  there  must  be  noticed  the  con- 
temptuous cancelling  by  the  French  Republic  of  the 
essential  terms  on  which,  in  1647,  the  Peace  of 
Westphalia  had  concluded  the  Thirty  Years'  War. 
This  treaty  had  guaranteed  security  and  independ- 
ence to  the  entire  population  of  Alsace.  The  French 
Convention  violently  robbed  the  Alsatian  nobles  and 
clergy  of  their  estates.  The  responsibilities  and 
honour  of  England  were  more  closely  touched  by  the 
victorious  advance  of  the  French  armies  to  the  banks 
of  the  Scheldt,  immediately  following  as  it  did  the 

French  violation  of  the  neutrality  of  that  stream. 

142 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE    FOREIGN    OFFICE    IN    WAR    TIME 
(1792-1806) 

Dumont's  account  of  Chauvelin's  reception  in  England — Lord  Elgin 
— Lord  Minto  and  Thugut — Lord  Spencer — Sir  John  Murray 
— Jealousy  between  Austria  and  Prussia — Austria's  reliance  on 
British  subsidies — The  Basle  Treaties  of  France  with  Spain 
and  Prussia — Understanding  between  Pitt  and  Thugut — The 
Preliminaries  of  Leoben  and  Campo  Formio — The  Peace  of 
NJ  Luneville — Pitt's  attempts  at  a  general  peace — Wickham,  at 
Berne — Lord  Malmesbury  and  La  Croix — Napoleon's  letter  to 
George  III.  and  Grenville's  reply — Napoleon's  second  letter — 
Action  abroad  impeded  by  differences  at  home — The  Anglo- 
Russian  entente — Count  Woronzow — The  Czar  Paul  quarrels 
with  England — The  Maritime  question — Alleyne  Fitzherbert, 
Lord  St  Helens — Lord  Leveson-Gower — Lord  Hawkesbury 
succeeds  Grenville  as  Foreign  Secretary — The  Peace  of  Amiens 
— Pitt  disapproves  of  the  peace — Russia's  dissatisfaction — 
Harrowby  and  Novosiltzow — The  Treaty  of  St  Petersburg, 
1805 — The  Convention  of  Helsingborg — Pitt's  death  and  the 
Talents  Ministry,  1806. 

r  I  "HERE  is  no  better  French  authority  for  the  course 
A  of  Anglo-French  diplomacy  on  the  eve  of  the 
outbreak  of  the  Revolutionary  War  than  the  writer 
already  referred  to  in  connection  with  Talleyrand, 
Dumont  ;  his  acquaintance  with  English  society 
dated  from  1785.  His  second  visit  to  this  country 
was  made  as  Chauvelin's  unofficial  companion  in 
1792.  From  the  first  he  used  his  knowledge  of 
English  life  and  character  to  guard  his  countrymen 
against  mistake  on  two  points.  "  So  far,"  he  re- 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

marked,   "from  being,  as  is  the  fashion  to  say,  well 
received,    we    are    really   cold-shouldered.       No   one 
believes   in   us   or  likes   us.     Chauvelin's  position   is 
only  possible  on  condition  of  his  not  seeking  important 
interviews,  lying  low,  and  as  far  as  possible  keeping 
out  of  evidence."     All  this  was  literally  true.     Within 
a  few   weeks  after   the   mission  had  begun,  on  2ist 
May  1792,  Chauvelin  had  handed  in  a  censure  of  the 
English  proclamation  against   seditious  writings,  with 
a  demand  that  it  should  be  laid  before  Parliament. 
Grenville  merely  returned  the  document  with  a  curt 
endorsement  to  the  effect  that  the  French  ambassador 
was  exceeding  the  limits  of  his  proper  sphere.     From 
that  moment  Chauvelin  s   failure  was   assured.     The 
second  fallacy,  of  which  in  his  home  letters  Dumont 
warned  his  friends  to  clear  their  minds,  related  to  the 
position  of  the  English  Prime  Minister  and  the  true 
English  temper  towards   the   new  forces   which   had 
declared  themselves  in  France.     Irresponsible  gossip 
may  tell  you,   he  in  effect  says,  there  is  a  power  in 
England  greater  than  that  of  the  minister  or  the  king, 
secretly  but   irresistibly   sympathising   with   the   new 
order  in  France.     Do  not  believe  it  for  a  moment. 
Pitt,    and  Pitt  alone,  personifies  the  genius   and  the 
fixed  resolve  of  the  British  nation.     Whatever  it  may 
be,  his  policy  is  the  expression  of  the  national  will. 
Fox  has  forty  followers,  all  of  whom  would  die  for  him, 
but  is   the  mouthpiece  of  a  faction.     Pitt  relies  only 
on  himself,  yet  carries  the  whole  country  in  his  port- 
folio.     Chauvelin  himself  lived,  after   his   retirement 
from  England  and  from   diplomacy,   long  enough  to 
endorse  from  his   experience   the  truth  of  Dumont's 

words.     After  his  return  to  France  and  the  restoration 

144 


The  Foreign  Office  in  War  Time 

of  the  monarchy,  his  former  republican  associations 
secured  him  a  year's  imprisonment;  between  1804 
and  1812  he  held  several  municipal  offices ;  after  that 
he  began  a  new  and  successful  career  as  an  orator  in 
the  French  Chamber.  Before  his  death,  in  1832,  he 
visited  private  friends  in  England  ;  well  received  in 
London  society,  he  acknowledged  at  more  than  one 
dinner-table  his  own  mistakes  and  the  accuracy  of 
Dumont's  impressions. 

Though  untrained  to  international  politics  as  a  pro- 
fession, Dumont  had  performed  one  of  a  diplomatist's 
chief  duties  in  trying  to  undeceive  the  rulers  and 
people  of  France  as  to  English  opinion  and  resources. 
After  the  outbreak  of  the  war  the  entire  course  of 
English  diplomacy  was  personally  directed  by  Pitt. 
The  professional  diplomatists  abroad  were  used  by 
him  not  so  much  to  execute,  not  at  all  to  suggest 
policy.  Their  one  business  consisted  in  sending  him 
news.  Thus  each  of  our  foreign  chanceries  became 
an  emporium  for  transmitting  information  on  which 
the  English  minister  intended  to  act.  Some  of  those 
who  distinguished  themselves  in  that  capacity  may 
now  be  mentioned.  First  in  order  of  distinction  and 
importance  comes  Thomas  Bruce,  the  seventh  Earl  of 
Elgin,  whose  removal  of  Greek  statuary  from  Athens 
brought  down  upon  him  the  lash  of  Byron's  satire. 
Born  in  1766  and  living  to  1841,  he  began  his  career 
by  a  special  mission  to  the  Emperor  Leopold  in  1790. 
Two  years  later  he  was  envoy  at  Brussels.  In  1795 
he  became  head  of  the  embassy  at  Berlin.  To  the 
Austrian  capital,  Scotland  contributed  another  son  of 
the  same  calibre  as  Elgin,  and  one  of  Pitt's  most 
trusty  informants.  The  second  Earl  of  Minto  repre- 

K  145 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

sented  his  Government  in  most  of  their  dealings  with 
the  Austrian  Foreign  Office  under  Thugut.  That 
minister,  in  his  anxiety  to  oppose  or  support  any  inter- 
national project  which  Minto  might  desire,  by  way  of 
winning  favour  with  the  Northern  peer  once  suggested 
the  abolition  of  the  pope.  The  British  ambassador 
drily  replied  that,  as  a  Scot  and  a  Presbyterian,  he 
had  no  particular  respect  for  the  Vatican,  that  it 
seemed,  however,  to  be  a  question  between  the 
Christianity  of  Roman  Catholicism  and  the  worship  of 
the  Goddess  of  Reason  in  Europe  ;  on  the  whole  he 
thought  the  former  alternative  to  be  the  less  objec- 
tionable of  the  two.  Thugut's  chicanery  and  hollow- 
ness  were  penetrated  both  by  Minto  and  another  of  our 
Vienna  ambassadors,  Spencer,  at  their  first  interview. 
With  Kaunitz,  they  both  said,  we  can  do  business. 
Of  Minto's  relations  with  Thugut,  something  will 
presently  be  said. 

Minto's  personal  charm  must  have  been  greater 
than  that  of  any  diplomatic  contemporary.  Women 
and  children,  it  was  said,  at  once  took  to  him  by 
instinct,  and  afterwards  clung  to  him  in  love.  As  an 
Elliot  of  Stobs,  he  belonged  to  a  family  conspicuous 
in  all  generations  for  its  influence  and  success.  During 
its  short  possession  by  England  (1794-6),  he  was 
Viceroy  of  Corsica.  While  thus  representing  George 
III.  in  Bonaparte's  native  island,  he  had  in  a  sense, 
for  about  a  twelvemonth,  Napoleon  for  his  subject. 
As  Lord  Minto  he  became  Governor-General  of 
India  in  1806.  Created  an  earl  for  his  Asiatic 
achievements,  he  came  home  only  to  die,  in  1814. 
Slightly  senior  to  Elgin,  the  second  Earl  Spencer  had 
become  first  Lord  of  the  Admiralty  in  the  stirring  years 

146 


The  Foreign  Office  in  War  Time 

of  Nelson  ;  he  brought  to  the  Austrian  capital  the  native 
shrewdness  of  an  English  squire  brought  up  among 
horses,  but  with  a  manner  polished  by  the  experience 
of  almost  every  European  court.  Before  then,  how- 
ever, in  1792-3,  Spencer  was  much  at  Brussels.  The 
Belgian  capital  at  that  epoch  shared  with  The  Hague 
and  Vienna  the  same  sort  of  notoriety  for  diplomatic 
conspiracy  and  international  intrigue  as  had  formerly 
belonged  in  succession  to  Madrid  and  Milan.  Neither 
military  nor  naval  attache's  at  that  time  existed.  But 
Spencer  obtained  much  information  particularly  valu- 
able to  Pitt,  from  Sir  John  Murray.  This  was  a  dis- 
tinguished officer  who  personally  followed  the  Duke  of 
Brunswick's  operations  when  that  general's  gallantries 
and  preoccupation  with  executing  Catherine  II.'s  com- 
mands in  the  partition  of  Poland  left  him  time  to  go 
through  the  formality  of  taking  the  field.  But  for  the 
shrewd  Murray's  practical  advice,  some  of  Pitt's  col- 
leagues, if  not  Pitt  himself,  might,  by  a  repetition  of 
the  Quiberon  affair,  have  been  made  the  cat's-paws  of 
the  dispossessed  royalists  for  pulling  out  of  the  revolu- 
tionary fire  their  estates,  that  were  the  only  things  for 
which  those  patriots  cared.* 

But  it  was  from  Vienna  that  Pitt  first  received 
confirmation  of  his  suspicions  that  England's  allies 
had  chiefly  gone  into  the  war  with  the  motive  of 
pocketing  English  gold  or  feasting  on  Polish  plunder. 
At  Vienna,  Minto,  Straton  and  Spencer  were  all 
of  them  ambassadors  during  the  wars  of  the  French 
Revolution.  To  Straton  belongs  the  distinction  of 

*  Original  details   confirming  this  view  will  be  found  in  the  Auck- 
land Papers,  vol.  ii.  p.  64,  and  in  an  article  by  Mr  Oscar  Browning, 

Fortnightly  Review,  February  1883. 

147 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

having  been  the  first  to  unveil  the  secret  policy 
and  the  real  purpose  of  the  allies  who  were  affecting 
to  co-operate  with  England  for  the  pacification  of 
Europe.  The  personal  safety  of  the  French  king 
with  his  family  and  the  restoration  of  the  French 
monarchy  had  stood  foremost  in  the  Pilnitz  pro- 
gramme. Those  ends  began  practically  to  be  ignored 
before  the  first  campaign  had  fairly  begun.  So  long 
as  England  regularly  provided  the  sinews  of  war, 
Austria  and  Prussia  would  make  a  show  of  joining 
their  arms  with  hers.  But  the  real  word  of  command 
had  been  given  by  the  Empress  Catherine  from 
St  Petersburg.  Following  the  Russian  example, 
Austria  and  Prussia  saw  in  the  European  convulsion 
an  opportunity  of  enriching  themselves  at  the  cost  of  a 
feeble  and  a  friendless  state.  It  was  the  story  of  the 
1761  Family  Compact  in  a  new  setting  and  brought 
up  to  date.  The  same  mixture  of  ingenuity  and  luck 
by  which  Chatham's  understrappers  had  ascertained 
the  earlier  conspiracy  of  the  Bourbon  houses  now  put 
Straton,  Spencer  and  Minto  on  the  scent  of  the  plan 
formed  by  the  great  military  monarchies  for  blotting 
out  Poland  from  the  map  of  Europe. 

The  Austrian  Foreign  Minister,  Cobenzl,  pointedly 
declined  to  reassure  Straton  on  the  subject ;  he  could 
only  say  that  the  Austrian  ambassador  in  London, 
Count  Stadion,  would  in  due  course  give  all  needful 
information.  The  reports  received  at  the  London 
Foreign  Office  were  to  the  following  effect : — No  sense 
of  honour  constrains  the  international  thieves ;  the 
jealousy  entertained  by  Austria  and  Prussia  of  each 
other  far  exceeds  their  common  dislike  of  France.  On 

that  jealousy  French  intrigue  successfully  plays.     If 

148 


The  Foreign  Office  in  War  Time 

Austria  deserts  Prussia  in  Poland,  Prussia  will  retaliate 
by  making  common  cause  with  France  against 
her,  and  promptly  invade  Bavaria.  Should  Prussia 
decline  her  part  in  the  Polish  plot,  an  Austrian  and 
French  army  will  march  on  Berlin.  The  international 
intrigues,  counter-intrigues,  military  and  political  con- 
spiracies of  the  war  of  the  Austrian  Succession  were 
in  fact  beginning  to  repeat  themselves.  Austrian  and 
Prussian  generals,  not  less  than  Austrian  and  Prussian 
statesmen,  kept  a  sharp  lookout,  not  for  the  professed 
enemy,  but  for  the  best  market  in  which  to  sell  them- 
selves, their  Governments  and  their  allies.  Non  olet ; 
if  Pitt  delayed  his  remittances,  were  not  the  resources 
of  France  inexhaustible,  and  was  not  French  money 
quite  as  good  as  English  ?  Such,  literally,  was  the 
tenor  of  the  scandalous  chronicle  that  forms  the 
diplomatic  history  of  the  first  year  of  the  struggle. 
In  the  course  of  1794,  the  victories  of  Hoche  and 
Pichegru  had  laid  Prussia  at  the  feet  of  France  ;  the 
Duke  of  Brunswick's  retreat  completed  for  the  time 
her  withdrawal  from  the  contest.  Austria's  retire- 
ment was  soon  to  follow.  Meanwhile,  both  Eng- 
land's nominal  allies  occupied  themselves  alternately 
with  devouring  Poland  in  fragments  or  thrusting 
their  hands  deeper  into  the  British  purse.  Pitt's 
appeals  to  Austrian  faith  and  honour  were  heard  with 
a  smile  of  contempt  in  the  chancery  and  salons  of 
Vienna.  The  financial  condition  of  Austria  had 
become  almost  desperate.  Pitt's  subsidies  alone  saved 
the  Bank  of  Vienna  from  breaking.  Even  so,  in  an  in- 
terview held  in  1799  with  Minto,  as  Sir  Morton  Eden's 
successor  at  the  British  Embassy,  Thugut  feared  that 

Napoleon's  advance  on  the  Austrian  capital  could  not 

149 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

be  resisted  unless  ,£500,000  more  were  at  once  forth- 
coming to  pay  the  troops.  Thugut's  name  suggests 
the  new  era  in  the  diplomatic  personnel  of  Europe 
opened  by  the  Revolution.  The  aristocratic  tradition 
of  the  Austrian  Foreign  Office,  represented  by  Kaunitz, 
was  first  broken  when  his  successor  was  found  in  the 
son  of  a  poor  boatman  on  the  Danube,  who  had  done 
so  well  at  the  Oriental  School  at  Vienna  as  to  attract 
the  notice  of  Maria  Theresa  and  to  be  started  by  her 
in  a  diplomatic  career.  With  Thugut's  control  of 
Austria's  external  relations,  there  opens  a  fresh  chapter 
in  the  record  of  the  intercourse  between  London  and 
Vienna.  England  had  mildly  protested  to  Austria  and 
Prussia  against  their  Polish  policy.  Several  amateur 
diplomatists  had  suggested  to  Downing  Street,  as  a 
little  diversion  from  the  central  war,  an  Anglo-French 
intervention  to  preserve  some  remnants  of  the  national 
carcase  feasted  on  by  the  Imperial  or  royal  vultures. 
In  August  1799,  Minto  informed  Grenville  and  Pitt 
of  the  Austrian  designs  in  Italy.  Savoy  and  Piedmont, 
if  not  Naples,  were  to  fall  to  the  Vienna  monarchy  as 
its  prize  in  the  general  scramble.  England  had  only 
two  conditions  to  suggest :  the  first,  that  she  relied  on 
Austria  as  the  one  barrier  to  France  in  the  Low 
Countries  ;  the  second,  that  in  return  for  giving  Austria 
free  hand,  she  must  insist  on  a  commercial  treaty 
particularly  favourable  to  British  trade. 

The  point  has  now  been  reached  at  which  a 
general  view  may  be  formed  of  English  diplomacy 
under  Pitt,  first  with  reference  to  Britain's  allies, 
secondly  in  connection  with  their  enemy  France. 
As  regards  the  former,  English  statesmanship,  even 
when  backed  by  open  cheques  all  round,  had  failed 

150 


The  Foreign  Office  in  War  Time 

to  secure  not  only  the  prompt  and  efficient  pro- 
secution of  the  war,  but  anything  like  fidelity  to 
England  on  the  part  of  her  colleagues  in  that  enter- 
prise. What  happened  not  once  but  habitually,  was 
this  :  Pitt,  sometimes  directly  himself,  more  frequently 
through  his  Foreign  Office  and  his  representatives 
abroad,  concluded  at  a  particular  juncture  and  for  a 
definite  purpose  an  agreement  with  one  of  his  partners 
in  the  struggle.  That  always  meant  a  British  pay- 
ment for  a  specific  end.  The  money  had  no  sooner 
changed  hands  than  the  object  for  which  it  had  been 
given  was  ignored.  The  payee,  before  beginning  to 
perform  his  part  of  the  bargain,  looked  for  some  other 
market  in  which  to  sell  himself  for  a  higher  price  than 
that  given  by  Great  Britain.  This  is  what  had 
happened  in  1795,  in  a  fashion  so  much  more  con- 
spicuous than  upon  any  other  occasion,  as  to  necessitate 
a  brief  retrospect  of  the  transaction.  The  year  just 
named  was  that  of  the  Basle  treaties  between  France, 
Prussia  and  Spain.  These  concern  us  here  only  so 
far  as  they  furnish  another  proof  of  the  degree  in 
which  British  agencies,  military  as  well  as  diplomatic, 
had  now  ceased  to  produce  any  practical  sense  of 
obligation  to  England  on  the  part  of  her  allies.  On 
5th  April  1795,  in  return  for  her  neutrality,  Prussia 
received  the  guarantee  of  France  that  at  any  general 
pacification  of  Europe,  hereafter,  she  should  receive 
full  territorial  compensation  for  any  possessions  she 
might  surrender.  The  single  plea  on  which  the 
French  Convention  had  added  Spain  to  Austria  and 
Prussia  in  its  earliest  declaration  of  war  was  a  sus- 
picion or  conviction  of  Spanish  ill-will  to  the  Republic. 
By  the  Basle  treaty  of  22nd  July  1795,  Spain  pur- 


The  Story  of  British   Diplomacy 

chased  peace  with  France  at  the  cost  of  her  interest 
in  the  West  Indian  island  of  San  Domingo.  Of  that 
arrangement  the  London  Foreign  Office  might  well 
be  a  passive  spectator.  Its  only  interest  for  England 
was,  as  the  event  proved,  that  it  prepared  the  way  for 
the  Franco-Spanish  understanding  which  united  the 
fleets  of  both  countries  against  Great  Britain  at  Tra- 
falgar, and  two  years  after  that  for  the  Treaty  of 
Fontainebleau  (27th  October  1807)  for  the  partition  of 
Portugal.  The  earliest  appearance,  therefore,  of  an 
entente  between  the  two  countries  separated  by  the 
Pyrenees  in  a  way  presages  the  peninsular  portion  of  the 
war  that  itself  formed  the  prelude  to  Napoleon's  fall. 
In  view  of  what  the  future  had  in  store,  it  is  of  some 
interest  to  mention  that  in  the  last  month  of  1793  a 
British  agent  obtained  from  a  spy  at  Toulon  and 
forwarded  to  the  Foreign  Office  an  account  of  the  un- 
successful attack  upon  Toulon,  containing  the  earliest 
mention  in  any  British  document  of  Napoleon's  name. 
Meanwhile  the  results  of  Pitt's  Austrian  negotia- 
tions experienced  a  momentary  improvement.  This 
was  partly  due  to  Baron  Thugut's  vigorous  political 
sympathies  ;  for  though,  as  has  been  seen,  not  belong- 
ing by  birth  to  the  Austrian  aristocracy,  that  controller 
of  the  Vienna  Foreign  Office  had  all  their  exclusive 
prejudices.  He  distrusted  and  hated  revolutionary 
France  as  cordially  as  did  Catherine  II.  herself. 
The  generalship  of  the  Austrian  troops  for  which 
England  was  sole  paymaster  had  long  proved 
scandalously  inefficient.  As  a  condition  of  further 
supplies,  Pitt  insisted  on  a  change  of  commanders. 
Here  he  had  the  support  of  Thugut.  Further  Anglo- 
Austrian  negotiations  resulted  in  the  Prince  of  Coburg 

152 


The  Foreign  Office  in  War  Time 

being  superseded  by  Clerfayt.  Though  that  change 
did  not  produce  all  the  results  which  had  been  hoped,  an 
improvement  set  in  with  the  appointment  of  the  Arch- 
duke Charles  ;  this  was  entirely  due  to  the  good  under- 
standing between  Pitt  and  Thugut.  These  two  were 
for  a  time  united  in  a  genuine  co-operation.  That 
fact  alone  makes  it  unlikely  that  Thugut  should  have 
sold  the  Austrian  cypher  to  the  French,  or  should  have 
preferred  his  speculations  in  the  French  Funds  to 
Austrian  victories  in  the  field.  In  1797,  the  Austrian 
nobility  had  lost  heart,  the  national  exchequer  was 
empty.  Thugut 's  energy,  helped  by  French  delays, 
alone  prevented  Bonaparte  entering  Vienna  unopposed. 
Even  as  it  was,  Thugut  failed  to  avert  the  military 
collapse  ;  the  Leoben  preliminaries,  on  i8th  April  1797, 
gave  the  Netherlands  to  France;  as  a  quid  pro  quo, 
Austria,  out  of  Napoleon's  Italian  plunder,  was  to 
receive  Venice  with  other  territories  on  the  Adriatic. 
How  in  this  scramble  England  diplomatised  or  forced 
herself  into  Malta  will  presently  be  seen  in  connec- 
tion with  other  political  incidents  belonging  to  that 
episode.  Both  the  Leoben  provisions  and  those  of 
Campo  Formio  were  formally  ratified  by,  and  included 
in  the  Franco-Austrian  Peace  of  Luneville  which, 
opening  the  nineteenth  century,  marks  the  final  with- 
drawal of  Austria  from  the  struggle,  the  end  of  Pitt's 
second  coalition  against  France,  and  the  temporary 
retirement  of  Pitt  himself. 

Other  movements  of  British  diplomacy  remain  to 
be  noticed.  Meanwhile,  what  were  the  overtures  to 
France  for  a  general  pacification  made  by  Pitt 
during  the  progress  of  the  events  already  described  ? 
The  manifesto  published  by  the  English  minister  at 

153 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

the  beginning  of  hostilities  had  expressly  declared  his 
wish  to  listen  to  terms  of  accommodation  on  the  first 
opportunity.  In  1793,  Fox  had  brought  forward  a 
resolution  condemning  the  war,  to  find  himself  beaten 
by  226  votes.  The  next  year,  however,  at  least  two 
motions  in  favour  of  peace  negotiation  were  proposed 
with  Pitt's  approval  and  by  his  own  friend  Wilberforce. 
Directly  a  settled  Government  existed  in  France, 
Pitt  had  always  said  he  would  press  proposals  for 
peace.  In  1795  the  establishment  of  the  Directory 
seemed  to  give  the  awaited  opportunity.  During  the 
next  spring,  "  without  committing  ourselves  too  far, 
we  might,  I  think,"  said  Pitt  to  Grenville,  "get  some- 
one to  sound  the  new  French  administration  as  to 
terms  of  a  general  peace."  "  I  have,"  replied  the 
Foreign  Minister,  "the  man  you  want,  ready  for  the 
work.  Wickham  at  Berne  is  discretion  itself  and  on 
the  best  of  terms  with  his  French  colleague,  who  is 
high  in  the  favour  of  the  new  regime  at  Paris."  In 
executing  his  commission,  Pitt  failed  only  because 
success  was  out  of  the  question.  England,  in  her  un- 
suspecting innocence,  held  herself  bound  in  honour  to 
entertain  no  proposals  for  ending  the  war,  save  on  the 
condition  of  the  Low  Countries  being  restored  to  Austria. 
That,  Wickham's  French  friend  assured  him,  was  abso- 
lutely inadmissible.  So  ended  the  parley.  The  true 
reason  why  the  affair  fell  through  was,  of  course, 
that  the  early  vigour  and  success  of  the  Directory 
had  already  filled  the  French  mind  with  definite  hopes 
of  universal  conquest.  Pitt's  diplomacy,  however,  was 
still  actuated  by  a  belief  that  with  patience  he  might 
still  attain  his  pacific  end.  In  Malmesbury  he  had  a 
negotiator  who  combined  great  position,  a  grave 

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The  Foreign  Office  in  War  Time 

urbanity  of  address  with  rare  professional  skill  and  a 
real  devotion  to  himself.  Malmesbury  therefore  was, 
in  the  autumn  of  1796,  chosen  by  Pitt  to  confer  in 
Paris  with  the  Foreign  Minister  of  the  Directory,  La 
Croix,  the  representative  of  Republic  patriotism  in  its 
most  extreme  and  aggressive  form.  Pitt  had  other 
reasons  than  the  high  qualifications  of  his  represen- 
tative for  hoping  for  a  good  result  from  his  new 
negotiations.  England  had  recently  taken  the  Cape 
of  Good  Hope  and  many  of  the  French  possessions  in 
the  West  Indies.  The  English  Government  could 
therefore  offer  the  Directory  a  substantial  return  for 
the  necessary  concessions.  At  the  outset,  however, 
of  the  discussion,  La  Croix  let  it  be  known  that  he 
could  not  relinquish  so  valuable  a  prize  of  war  as  the 
Netherlands.  On  that  point  Grenville  had  instructed 
Malmesbury  that  he  must  not  give  the  smallest  hope 
of  any  relaxation.  La  Croix,  whose  personal  bearing 
from  the  first  had  been  the  reverse  of  reassuring, 
abruptly  declared  the  conversation  closed.  Still  inde- 
fatigably  tenacious  of  his  peace  policy,  Pitt,  in  the 
autumn  of  1797,  through  the  same  representative  as 
before,  renewed  his  endeavours  to  end  hostilities. 
Since  Malmesbury 's  former  mission  the  international 
situation  had  undergone  an  important  change.  The 
already  mentioned  preliminaries  of  Leoben  (i8th 
April  1797)  became  afterwards  (October  1797)  the 
Peace  of  Campo  Formio.  By  that  Austria  had  secretly 
made  over  to  France  those  Low  Countries  whose 
cession  the  English  Government  said  it  was  bound 
in  duty  to  its  allies  not  to  entertain.  The  question 
of  the  Low  Countries  cannot  therefore  have  again 
arisen  between  the  French  and  British  plenipotenti- 

155 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

aries.  The  new  objection  raised  by  the  Foreign 
Office  at  Paris  was  that  the  London  plenipotentiary 
did  not  fully  answer  to  his  official  style,  that  his 
authority  was  too  limited,  and  that  he  had  to  refer 
home  for  instructions  more  often  than  seemed  respectful 
to  a  great  Power  like  France.  The  true  cause  of 
the  miscarriage  was  that  militarism  had  acquired 
the  ascendant  in  the  Directory  and  that  the  fight- 
ing faction  knew  the  French  army  throve  best  on 
war. 

The  next  occasion  on  which  peace  prospects  be- 
tween the  two  countries  came  into  sight  had  a  dramatic 
interest  wanting  to  the  earlier  negotiations.  In  1799, 
Napoleon,  advancing  another  stage  towards  the  Im- 
perial crown,  had  become  First  Consul ;  in  that  capacity 
he  wrote  directly  to  George  III.  suggesting  a  peace. 
Pitt  and  his  sovereign  entirely  agreed  that  the  state  of 
French  affairs  contained  little  promise  of  successful 
negotiation.  The  English  reply,  they  were  further 
united  in  thinking,  should  reciprocate  the  First 
Consul's  willingness  to  end  the  war,  and  should 
propose  the  restoration  of  the  French  monarchy  as 
the  safest  means  of  doing  so.  The  actual  composition 
of  the  answer,  of  course,  fell  to  the  Foreign  Secretary. 
Naturally  stiff  and  didactic,  Grenville  was  the  last  man 
fitted  to  pen  a  conciliatory  despatch.  He  now  pro- 
duced not  a  reply  to  Bonaparte's  letter,  but  a  censure 
of  French  national  and  diplomatic  methods  in  the  form 
of  a  note  to  our  ambassador  in  Paris.  It  was  thus 
neither  a  refusal  nor  an  acceptance  of  the  First  Consul's 
offer.  Without  a  touch  of  epigram  or  a  single  felicity 
of  expression,  it  formed  a  ponderously-phrased  lecture 

on  the  enormity  of  the  courses  pursued  by   France 

156 


The  Foreign  Office  in  War  Time 

since  she  had  dispensed  with  the  services  of  her  king. 
It  is  now  known  from  a  recent  chief  of  our  Foreign 
Office,  George  III.  on  reading  the  draft  thought  it 
much  too  strong,  regretfully  adding,  "  I  suppose  it 
must  go."  *  As  the  king  shrewdly  anticipated  at 
the  time,  the  passage  which  chiefly  roused  the  indig- 
nation of  Napoleon,  and  which  strengthened  im- 
mensely his  position  with  his  countrymen,  was  His 
Britannic  Majesty's  intimation  that  the  reinstatement 
of  the  Bourbon  monarchy  would  form  a  guarantee  of 
French  sincerity,  which  he  might  reasonably  expect, 
and  which  would  greatly  assist  the  process  of  the 
negotiations.  Napoleon  did  not  take  the  trouble 
of  referring  Grenville's  effusion  to  the  French  Foreign 
Office,  or  even  privately  to  Talleyrand.  He  per- 
sonally penned  an  acknowledgment  which  gave  him 
both  a  literary  and  a  logical  victory ;  he  appreci- 
ated, he  gravely  said,  the  English  king's  gracious 
admission  that  nations  had  a  right  to  choose  their 
own  form  of  government.  This  was  indeed  only  what 
he  had  expected,  seeing  it  was  by  the  exercise  of 
such  a  right  that  His  Britannic  Majesty  held  his  own 
crown.  Unfortunately,  however,  the  King  of  England 
had  annexed  insinuations,  such  as  tended  to  an  inter- 
ference in  the  internal  affairs  of  the  Republic,  and 
were  no  less  injurious  to  the  nation  and  to  its  Govern- 
ment than  would  seem  to  the  subjects  of  King- 
George  a  French  suggestion  to  restore  the  Republic 
which  England  had  adopted  in  the  middle  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  or  an  exhortation  to  recall  to 
the  British  throne  the  family  whom  their  birth  had 
placed  there,  and  whom  a  revolution  had  compelled  to 

*  Lord  Rosebery's  /¥//,  p.  143. 
157 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

descend  from  it.  Still,  not  less  anxious  for  peace  than 
in  the  first  instance,  Napoleon  would  at  once  sus- 
pend hostilities ;  plenipotentiaries  from  both  sides 
might  then  meet  at  Dunkirk,  or  some  other  convenient 
place. 

Now,  as  has  so  often  happened,  English  action 
abroad  was  constrained  and  interfered  with  by  the 
influences  of  faction  at  home.  The  sympathies  of 
Fox,  as  has  been  seen,  had  reinforced  Pitt  in  1794, 
by  the  secession  of  the  Portland  Whigs.  Whether, 
as  in  the  cases  of  Portland  and  of  Windham,  these 
actually  became  members  of  Pitt's  reconstituted  ad- 
ministration or  remained  outside  it,  they  formed  the 
life  and  soul  of  the  fighting  party,  and  the  most  serious 
of  all  checks  upon  the  pacific  diplomacy  of  Pitt  himself. 
The  international  prospect  now  began  pretty  con- 
sistently to  be  seen  through  the  medium  of  the 
militarism  personified  by  Spencer  and  Windham.  Of 
these,  the  former,  returning  to  England  from  Vienna 
in  1794,  had  then  become  First  Lord  of  the  Ad- 
miralty ;  the  latter  was  now  a  leading  figure  on  the 
War  Office  staff. 

Under  such  strong  personal  influences  it  had 
become  a  fixed  article  in  the  faith  of  Downing  Street, 
that  no  declared  wish  of  Napoleon  for  peace  could 
possibly  be  sincere.  Grenville  was  not  merely  the 
head  of  the  Foreign  Office  ;  he  was  the  most  orthodox 
and  rigid  incarnation  of  its  prejudices,  its  punc- 
tilios, its  proprieties,  its  red-tapery  and  its  routine. 
"The  First  Consul/'  he  said,  in  his  most  pompously 
oracular  and  infallible  manner,  "wishes  to  gain 
time  and  to  put  your  Majesty  and  your  servants 

off  guard."     Pitt  insisted  on  his  right  to  judge  for 

158 


The  Foreign  Office  in  War  Time 

himself,  and  dared  to  see  in  Bonaparte's  offer  a  sign 
of  the  times. 

Accordingly,  in  1800,  before  Grenville's  outraged 
officialism  had  fully  recovered  from  the  shock  of 
Bonaparte's  irregularity,  Pitt  suggested  to  our  ambas- 
sador at  Vienna,  Lord  Minto,  that  Austria  might  be 
disposed  to  co-operate  with  him  in  an  international 
reconnaissance  of  peace  possibilities.  Austria,  how- 
ever, as  has  been  seen,  after  what  happened  at 
Leoben,  had  already  committed  herself  to  the  agree- 
ment with  France,  which,  in  February  1801,  was 
formally  confirmed  by  the  Peace  of  Luneville.  Our 
Vienna  embassy's  reports  more  than  justified  Downing 
Street's  scepticism  of  Napoleon's  sincerity.  He 
refused  to  discuss  the  peace  preliminaries  except  after 
he  had  provisioned  his  troops  in  Malta  and  Egypt ; 
Malta  was  then  blockaded  by  the  English.  In  Egypt 
the  victory  of  Aboukir  Bay  had  cut  off  the  French 
troops  from  the  rest  of  Napoleon's  army.  To  have 
entertained,  therefore,  his  terms  of  parley  would  have 
been  for  England  to  have  renounced  the  chief  advan- 
tages she  had  thus  far  gained,  and  practically  to  have 
surrendered  to  French  control  the  land  of  the  Pharaohs 
and  the  island  of  St  Paul.  The  divisions  in  the 
British  Cabinet  formed,  as  has  been  seen,  the  great 
obstacle  at  home  to  ending  the  war.  Pitt's  determina- 
tion to  get  peace  on  any  tolerable  terms  would  have 
triumphed  over  the  difficulties  raised  by  his  colleagues. 
The  insuperable  bar  was  Bonaparte's  resolve  to  em- 
ploy an  armistice  for  the  purpose  of  recruiting  his 
strength  against  England.  Only  in  a  secondary  sense 
did  Pitt's  pacific  vigilance  or  Addington's  weariness  of 
war  procure  the  Peace  of  Amiens ;  its  real  cause 

159 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

was  the  need  felt  on  both  sides  for  an  interval  of 
comparative  rest.  Moreover,  the  year  which  witnessed 
a  fresh  advance  in  the  negotiations  that  ended  in  the 
Peace  of  Amiens,  had  seen  the  disappearance  of  the 
last  diplomatic  impediment  to  the  termination  of  the 
war.  So  long  as  Austria  had  held  England  to  her 
promise  of  defending  the  Austrian  Netherlands,  there 
could  be  no  reason  for  expectation  of  an  ending  to  the 
conflict.  But  in  1801,  Austria  had  by  her  own  act 
purchased  peace  from  Napoleon  at  the  price  of  posses- 
sions in  the  Low  Countries.  Thus  the  true  agencies 
that  rendered  at  least  a  truce  morally  certain  at  a 
distant  day  were  not  Pitt's  diplomacy  and  the  coali- 
tions against  France  in  which  it  resulted,  but  the 
relentless  crushing  of  Austria  in  Bonaparte's  trium- 
phant course. 

One  nominal  ally  England  still  retained.  This  was 
the  state  against  whose  encroachments  Pitt  had  tried 
to  guard  by  the  Loo  Convention,  and  whose  ruler, 
Catherine  II.,  had  endeavoured  to  secure  English 
co-operation  in  averting  the  international  calamities 
with  which  the  French  Revolution  threatened  well- 
ordered  Governments  throughout  the  world.  Sweden 
took  the  lead  in  answering  the  Czarina's  appeal  against 
France.  There  were  some  overtures  from  the  Russian 
Government  for  a  naval  demonstration  in  which  the 
British  fleet  was  to  take  part.  Eventually,  on  the  25th 
March  1793,  Lord  Grenville  as  Foreign  Secretary 
and  Count  Woronzow,  then  on  his  earliest  English 
mission,  signed  a  treaty  between  the  two  Powers  that 
laid  the  foundation  for  the  future  coalitions  against 
France,  and  that  pledged  both  Powers  to  carry  on  the 

war  until  France,  in  a  manner  approved  by  each  of 

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The  Foreign  Office  in  War  Time 

them,  should  restore  her  conquests.  This  compact 
gave  the  pattern  for  other  treaties  soon  afterwards 
arranged  between  England  on  the  one  hand,  and 
Sardinia  and  Spain  on  the  other.  The  foreign  offices 
of  London  and  St  Petersburg  were  absolutely  at  one 
with  Pitt  and  his  most  enlightened  foreign  contem- 
poraries, Haugwitz  and  Kaunitz,  in  renouncing  any 
idea  of  interfering  in  the  domestic  affairs  of  France. 
Their  one  ostensible  object  was  to  prevent  such  an 
international  preponderance  of  the  republican  state  as 
should  jeopardise  the  European  equilibrium.  Between 
England  and  Russia  things  went  smoothly  till  the 
period  of  the  ill-advised  expedition  of  the  two  Powers 
to  Holland,  in  1798,  for  restoring  the  royal  House  of 
Orange  deposed  by  Napoleon.  Then  came  mutual 
recriminations  between  the  two  Governments ;  the 
Czar  complained  of  the  slackness  of  the  English 
commander ;  the  inevitable  retorts  followed.  Yet,  in 
1799,  Woronzow,  writing  home,  could  speak  of  no 
foreign  monarch  ever  having  been  so  popular  in 
England  as  Paul  I.  By  way  of  reciprocating  English 
goodwill,  the  Czar  wishes  Woronzow  to  let  it  be 
known  that  he  intends  bestowing  on  the  English 
representative  at  St  Petersburg,  Earl  Whit  worth,  the 
Grand  Cross  of  the  Order  of  St  John  of  Jerusalem. 
These  and  other  amenities  on  the  part  of  the 
Czar  towards  England,  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth 
and  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century,  were 
made  known  here  by  a  Russian  diplomatist  about 
whom  a  few  words  may  be  said.  The  place  in  popular 
and  fashionable  life  filled  in  our  own  time  by  Baron 
Brunnow,  on  the  outbreak  of  the  Crimean  War,  closely 

resembled  that  during  the  years  which  preceded  the 
L  161 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

Tilsit  treaty  of  1807  occupied  in  English  society  by 
Count  Woronzow.  Eventually,  as  will  be  seen,  he 
quitted  the  Russian  service  to  settle  down  to  the 
life  of  an  English  country  gentleman  in  Hampshire. 
His  daughter's  marriage  with  the  eleventh  Earl  of 
Pembroke  made  him  the  grandfather  of  the  English 
War  Minister  of  the  Crimean  epoch,  Sidney  Herbert, 
who  died  Lord  Herbert  of  Lea.  Woronzow  himself, 
during  the  epoch  now  approached,  presents  himself  in 
the  light  less  of  a  Russian  emissary  than  of  a  Russian 
institution  in  this  country.  Other  envoys  from  St 
Petersburg  pass  and  repass  between  the  English  and 
the  Russian  capitals.  Woronzow,  wherever  he  may 
be  stationed,  always  seems  within  visiting  distance  of 
Downing  Street. 

The  personal  details  that  supplement  the  official 
narrative  of  the  Russian  Foreign  Office  now  drawn 
upon*  present  lifelike  portraits  of  Grenville  and  Pitt, 
filled  with  misgivings  for  the  possible  results  of  the 
diplomatic  misunderstanding  between  Russia  and 
Austria  in  1800.  By  this  time,  however,  experience 
must  have  rendered  Pitt  proof  against  surprise  or 
illusion  about  the  conduct  to  England  of  any  of  her 
allies.  No  •  obligations,  diplomatic  or  military,  to 
Great  Britain  could  keep  Austria  or  Prussia  from  a 
private  deal  with  the  common  enemy  at  any  convenient 
moment.  Diplomatically,  he  had  always  been  ill- 
served  at  St  Petersburg.  The  slackness  of  our  em- 
bassy when  in  the  charge  of  Sir  Everard  Fawkener, 
at  the  time  of  the  Oczakow  affair,  allowed,  or  rather 
invited,  the  interference  of  Fox  and  the  mission  of  his 

*  The  collection  of  treaties,  from  1801  to  1831,  between  England  and 
Russia,  published  by  the  Chancellor  of  the  Russian  Foreign  Office. 

162 


The  Foreign  Office  in  War  Time 

friend  Adair  to  encourage  the  Empress  Catherine  to 
hold  out  against  all  demands.  Since  then  Fawkener's 
son,  William  Augustus,  had  from  time  to  time  done 
much  of  the  work  of  the  embassy.  The  information 
he  sent  home  came  irregularly,  and  was  largely  made 
up  of  social  gossip  and  political  fiction.  Our  St  Peters- 
burg embassy  seems  only  to  have  begun  to  be  in  good 
working  order  some  years  later  under  Lord  Leveson- 
Gower,  presently  to  be  mentioned.  The  first  germ  of 
future  international  differences  is  latent  in  the  sugges- 
tion of  the  favourite  device  of  a  partially  instructed  and 
perplexed  diplomacy,  a  congress  to  be  held,  as  the 
Czar  thinks,  at  the  Russian  capital.  The  basis  of  any 
such  discussion  might  be  the  annexation  of  Belgium 
to  Holland,  the  restoration  of  the  French  and  Italian 
frontiers  as  they  had  existed  before  the  war,  and  a 
particular  show  of  respect  to  the  Germanic  Empire. 
The  pervading  tone  of  the  British  despatches  is 
courteous  reserve  or  urbane  criticism.  The  English 
suggestion  that  any  congress  there  might  be  should 
meet,  not  at  St  Petersburg,  but  at  Diisseldorf,  is 
resented  by  the  Czar  as  a  slur  on  his  good  faith.  He 
never  seems  quite  to  recover  his  amiable  equanimity. 
A  reminder  of  his  promise  to  assist  England  with 
troops  only  elicits  the  abrupt  remark  that  the  soldiers 
of  whom  he  had  spoken  were  recruiting  their  health 
and  were  not  yet  fit  for  work.  At  the  same  time 
there  shows  itself  the  sense  of  grievance  cherished  by 
Paul  against  Great  Britain  since  1798.  The  Czar  had 
caused  himself  to  be  nominated  chief  of  the  order  of 
Knights  of  St  John  of  Jerusalem  ;  in  that  capacity  he 
claimed  possession  of  Malta,  bitterly  complaining  of  the 
English  negligence  which  had  caused  Napoleon's  seizure 

163 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

of  the  island.  What,  in  1799  he  wished  to  know,  were 
the  British  intentions  respecting  it  ?  Lord  Whitworth, 
now  representing  King  George  at  St  Petersburg,  is 
instructed  by  Grenville  to  disclaim  for  His  Britannic 
Majesty  any  wish  permanently  to  keep  the  place,  or 
any  idea,  at  the  present  moment,  of  giving  it  up. 
After  this,  Whitworth's  self-respect  forbids  him  to 
continue  his  residence  at  the  Czar's  court.  For  some 
time  to  come  the  English  embassy  is  in  the  hands  of  a 
charge  d'affaires.  This  official  sends  home  complaints 
of  the  personal  outrages  to  which  he  is  subjected. 
The  English  request  for  explanations  provokes  the 
reply  that  the  Russian  emperor  only  vouchsafes  ex- 
planations to  his  Creator.  Simultaneously  also 
Woronzow  in  England  hears  from  St  Petersburg  that 
his  mission  to  England  is  at  an  end,  that  his  private 
affairs  require  to  be  attended  to  at  home  and  his  own 
health  to  be  recruited  at  a  German  spa.  Any  arrears 
of  work  would  be  cleared  up  by  State  Counsellor 
Lisakievitch. 

Henceforth,  having  left  the  diplomatic  service  of 
his  country,  Woronzow  remains  in  England  as  a 
private  resident ;  periodically,  however,  when  occasion 
needs,  he  resumes  his  diplomatic  role,  passing  most 
of  his  time  at  his  villa  near  Southampton  Water.  Here, 
from  Count  Pahlen,  the  head  of  the  Russian  Foreign 
Office,  he  heard  in  1801  of  its  having  pleased  the 
Almighty  to  take  to  Himself  the  Emperor  Paul  (who 
had,  to  speak  plainly,  been  strangled  by  a  palace 
assassin  in  his  bed).  The  new  emperor,  the  Czar 
Alexander,  the  nation's  hope  and  love,  intends  a  little 
later  to  make  Woronzow  Imperial  Minister  at  home, 

but  wishes  him,  before  leaving  England,  to  execute  a 

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few  commissions.  Alexander's  guiding  principle  is  a 
desire  to  stand  well  with  England,  and  to  do  his 
utmost  to  please  and  serve  her.  During  1801  reappear 
between  Great  Britain  and  Russia  those  conventions 
for  the  good  of  the  human  race,  first  set  on  foot  by  the 
Empress  Catherine.  Alexander's  amiability  and  de- 
votion towards  his  ally  can,  however,  only  find  full 
expression  if  England  ceases  to  stand  out  against  the 
maritime  league,  whose  sole  objects  are  peace  and 
justice.  This  in  plain  fact  meant  that  Great  Britain 
should  surrender  the  maritime  privileges  that  formed 
the  prize  of  the  naval  victories  securing  her  supremacy 
over  the  seas.  The  rights  which  England  had  thus 
placed  herself  in  a  position  to  exercise  had  already 
excited  the  opposition  of  the  Northern  states  ;  in  so 
doing  they  had  brought  into  existence  that  Armed 
Neutrality  which  forms  a  chapter  in  the  general  history 
of  the  period,  or  would  be  minutely  examined  rather 
in  a  treatise  on  International  Law  than  in  these  pages. 
It  was  a  long  outstanding  question,  the  constantly  re- 
current subject  of  much  polemical  diplomacy  on  the  part 
of  England  and  Russia.  Beginning  with  the  Empress 
Catherine  II.,  it  entered  upon  an  acute  phase  under 
Paul  I.  Even  during  the  next  reign  it  figures  largely 
in  the  controversial  correspondence  between  London 
and  St  Petersburg  which  led  up  to  the  earliest  hostile  ap- 
pearance of  a  British  fleet  in  Danish  waters,  commanded 
by  Nelson,  1801.  Alexander,  however,  was  above 
all  things  anxious  to  improve  Russian  commerce,  long 
injured  as  it  had  been  by  misunderstanding  with  the 
greatest  trading  nation  in  the  world.  Admiral  Sir 
John  Borlase  Warren  may  never  have  had  the  official 
style  of  British  ambassador.  The  Russian  mission 

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The   Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

to  which  he  was  attached  seems  to  have  originated  in 
some  court  function,  possibly  the  Czar's  coronation. 
Between  1801  and  1804,  however,  he  filled  an  im- 
portant position  at  our  St  Petersburg  embassy.  His 
manner  had  the  mixture  of  dignity  and  frankness  which 
pleased  the  Russian  court.  His  naval  and  maritime 
knowledge  proved  useful  to  our  diplomacy.  He  found 
a  congenial  colleague  at  St  Petersburg  in  Count  Nikita 
Petrovitch  Panine,  who  had  been  disgraced  by  Paul  1., 
but  who  was  recalled  by  Alexander  and  made  Vice- 
Chancellor,  with  the  special  purpose  of  negotiating 
with  the  English  representative.  Like  Woronzow, 
Panine  had  fallen  out  of  favour  with  Paul  for  his 
English  sympathies.  These  were  regarded  by  Alex- 
ander as  a  qualification  for  the  place.  Meanwhile  the 
final  settlement  of  Malta  might  remain  in  abeyance. 
The  immediate  necessity  was  an  amicable  understand- 
ing to  include  not  only  England  and  Russia,  but 
Denmark  and  Sweden  also.  The  matter  ended  for 
the  present  by  the  impounded  English  vessels  being 
set  at  liberty,  and  by  the  restoration  to  their  lawful 
owners  of  the  English  money  and  other  valuables 
seized  by  Russia. 

Mention  must  be  made  of  another  English 
diplomatist  who,  so  far  back  as  the  Empress 
Catherine's  time,  had  exerted  all  his  remarkable 
powers  to  prepare  the  way  for  an  Anglo- Russian 
alliance.  This  was  Alleyne  Fitzherbert,  Lord  St 
Helens,  famed  throughout  Europe  for  his  quiet, 
polished  manners,  and  a  sagacity  that  sometimes 
resembled  inspiration  ;  he  had  achieved  the  earliest  of 
his  great  diplomatic  successes  by  arranging  for  Pitt  the 

Nootka  Sound  difficulty,  and  concluding  the  arrange- 

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ment  that  in  1793  united  England  and  Spain  as 
allies.  It  was  Fitzherbert's  distinction  to  win  the 
good  opinion  equally  of  Whigs  and  Tories.  Fox, 
when  sending  him  on  his  earliest  visit  to  Russia,  had 
commended  him  to  the  Lord  Malmesbury  already 
repeatedly  mentioned — Mirabeau's  "  ruse  et  audacieux 
Malmesbury" — as  a  man  of  parts,  of  industry,  and  merit- 
ing entire  confidence.  Malmesbury  himself  alone  de- 
murred to  the  justice  of  this  eulogy  ;  for,  being  at  The 
Hague  during  the  ambassadorship  there  of  the  already 
mentioned  Lord  St  Helens,  he  found  our  envoy  there 
perfectly  courteous  and  friendly,  but  careless  about  his 
work,  and  unpunctual  in  his  appointments. 

But  the  early  nineteenth-century  ambassador  to 
Russia,  most  notable  alike  for  the  incidents  of  which  he 
formed  part,  and  for  his  family  connections,  was  the  Lord 
Leveson-Gower  who  in  1833  became  the  first  Earl 
Granville,  the  future  father  of  the  Foreign  Secretary  in 
the  Victorian  age.  The  son  of  Pitt's  first  Lord  President 
of  the  Council,  Granville  Leveson-Gower  had  begun 
his  diplomatic  career  under  Lord  Malmesbury,  with 
whom  he  served  at  the  Paris  embassy,  and  whom  he 
accompanied  to  Lille  on  the  peace  negotiations  in  1797 
already  described.  The  Dutch  capital  must  then  have 
ranked  above  the  Russian  in  the  diplomatic  scale  ;  for 
it  was  not  till  1823  that,  as  Viscount  Granville,  he  went 
to  The  Hague.  Here,  however,  he  only  remained  a 
year,  for  in  1824  he  replaced  Sir  Charles  Stewart  as 
ambassador  at  Paris.  Nineteen  years  earlier,  loth 
October  1804,  he  had  taken  up  his  appointment  at  St 
Petersburg  during  Pitt's  formation  of  the  third  coalition 
against  Napoleon.  So  acceptable  did  Granville  prove  to 

the  Czar  Alexander  as  to  be  chosen  for  his  companion 

167 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

during  the  Imperial  visit,  in  1805,  to  tne  seat  of  war» 
In  Russia  he  remained  till  the  close  of  our  diplomatic 
relations  with  that  country.* 

Meanwhile  the  London  Foreign  Office  had 
(2Oth  February  1801)  passed  into  new  management. 
Grenville's  lecture  to  the  First  Consul,  after  the 
Napoleonic  overtures  of  1799,  was  among  the  latest 
of  his  despatches  as  Secretary  of  State.  He  was 
succeeded  by  Lord  Hawkesbury,  afterwards  the  second 
Earl  of  Liverpool.  During  the  administration  which 
now  opens,  Downing  Street  was  agitated  by  Russian 
intrigues  with  Turkey  against  England.  Constanti- 
nople swarmed,  as  Hawkesbury  complains,  with 
Russian  diplomatists  or  Bonapartist  agents,  bent  upon 
making  mischief  between  Great  Britain  and  her  ally. 
Hawkesbury 's  protests  to  the  Russian  minister, 
Katchoubey,  as  summarised  and  handed  down  in  the 
Russian  official  record  already  referred  to,  read  less 
like  the  compositions  of  a  diplomatist  than  the 
questions  posed  by  an  international  casuist  upon  sub- 
jects that  lie  on  the  border-ground  between  diplomacy 
and  ethics.  The  relations  thus  produced  between  the 
two  Governments  were  not  improved  by  the  events 
that  attended  or  followed  the  short  cessation  of  hostili- 
ties, the  preliminary,  as  it  proved,  to  the  most  serious 
stage  of  the  war,  the  Peace  of  Amiens.  In  connection 
with  that  transaction,  the  diplomacy  of  the  First 

*  In  his  Life  of  the  Second  Earl  Granville  (i.  4)  Lord  Fitzmaurice  has 
recalled  the  fact  that  Lord  Granville  Leveson-Gower  owed  the  preserva- 
tion of  his  life  to  his  absence  from  the  Parliamentary  precincts  in  1812. 
During  his  Russian  ambassadorship,  Spencer  Perceval's  assassin  had 
conceived  the  idea  of  the  grievance  which  eventually  caused  the  attempt 
on  the  Prime  Minister's  life.  Bellingham  afterwards  confessed  that  the 
bullet  which  killed  Perceval  had  been  intended  for  Viscount  Granville. 

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The  Foreign  Office  in  War  Time 

Consul  proved  simplicity  itself.  The  Napoleonic 
policy,  never  lost  sight  of  amid  the  confusion  and 
sophistry  of  negotiations,  was  frankly  to  surrender 
nothing  of  the  ancient  domains  or  the  recent  acquisi- 
tions of  France.  Hawkesbury's  first  proposals  were 
the  evacuation  by  the  French  of  Egypt,  and  the 
retention  by  the  English  of  Ceylon,  Martinique, 
Trinidad,  and  other  colonial  conquests  made  during 
the  war.  The  French  counter-draft  of  the  treaty  now 
discussed  provided  for  Egypt's  restoration  to  the 
Sultan,  of  the  harbours  of  Italy  to  the  Pope  and  the 
King  of  Naples  ;  Port  Mahon  was  to  be  ceded  to 
Spain,  and  Malta  to  the  Knights  of  Jerusalem. 
Ceylon,  never  having  belonged  to  France,  but  having 
been  taken  from  the  Dutch,  was  readily  allotted  by 
Napoleon  to  England.  The  arrangements  about 
Malta,  Egypt,  Holland  and  the  West  Indies  led  to 
several  months'  discussion.  At  last,  ist  October  1801, 
the  preliminaries  were  executed  in  London  ;  within  a 
fortnight  Colonel  Lauriston  came  with  the  ratifications 
from  Paris.  The  definitive  treaty  between  Great 
Britain  and  France  was  signed  at  Amiens,  27th  March 
1802,  for  England  by  Lord  Cornwallis — who  as  our 
general  in  America  had  ruined  the  British  cause  by 
the  surrender  of  Yorktown,  and  who  afterwards  be- 
came successively  Irish  and  Indian  viceroy — for  France 
by  Joseph  Bonaparte  and  Talleyrand. 

The  conventional  reason  assigned  for  Pitt's 
resignation  in  the  preceding  February  is  his  conscien- 
tious opinion  that  the  union  with  Ireland  should  be 
accompanied  by  Roman  Catholic  emancipation.  At 
the  same  time  he  did  not  wish  to  add  to  the  king's 

troubles  by   importuning   him   on   so  distasteful    and 

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The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

distressing  a  subject.  The  true  cause  of  Pitt's  retire- 
ment must  be  found  in  foreign  rather  than  domestic 
politics.  In  1 80 1,  George  III.  had  consented  that 
emancipation  should  be  regarded  as  an  open  question 
by  his  ministers  and  not  mentioned  by  himself.  As 
a  fact  Pitt  left  office  only  because  he  saw  a  breathing- 
time  in  the  war  had  become  necessary  ;  he  did  not 
believe  a  satisfactory  peace  with  Napoleon  to  be 
possible  ;  he  would  not  associate  himself  with  a  mere 
temporary  truce.  Further,  he  knew  himself  to  be 
necessary  ;  he  could  look  forward  to  coming  back  on 
his  own  terms  at  a  more  auspicious  hour.  Lord 
Malmesbury's  published  letters  of  1801  and  George 
Canning's  unpublished  letters  to  Frere  place  all  this 
practically  beyond  doubt.* 

Notwithstanding  Canning's  satire  and  Pitt's 
contemptuous  approval,  the  House  of  Commons, 
without  a  division  and  amid  the  applause  of  the 
country,  had  approved  the  Amiens  settlement. 
The  Lords,  who  had  long  made  diplomatic  criticism 
their  speciality,  accepted  it  with  more  reserve.  They 
gave  the  treaty,  it  is  true,  a  majority  of  114  to  10, 
but  among  the  non-contents  were  such  experts  in 
international  statesmanship  as  Spencer,  our  former 
ambassador  at  Vienna,  Grenville  the  late  Foreign 
Secretary,  and  a  representative  of  many  shades  of 
national  opinion,  Lord  Carnarvon.  On  the  other 


*"  Pitt  (says  Malmesbury,  February  1801)  is  playing  a  selfish  and 
criminal  part,  going  out  only  to  show  his  own  power  and  to  return  as  a 
dictator."  So  in  letters,  for  a  sight  of  which  I  was  indebted  years  ago 
to  Mr  Alfred  Montgomery,  expressed  himself  Pitt's  protege  and  pupil, 
George  Canning,  whose  marriage  to  an  heiress  had  been  promoted  by 
Pitt,  but  who  never  quite  forgave  his  master  for  using  Addington  as  a 
warming-pan  in  1801. 

I/O 


The   Foreign  Office  in  War  Time 

hand  the  supporters  of  the  peace  could  truthfully  argue 
that  it  conferred  on  England  territorial  advantages  at 
least  equal  to  those  which  had  come  to  her  by  any 
earlier  arrangement.  By  the  Treaty  of  Versailles 
we  had  indeed  lost  considerably  ;  by  the  earlier  treaties 
of  Ryswick  and  Aix-la-Chapelle  we  had  gained 
nothing ;  but  now,  after  having  drawn  the  fangs 
of  European  Jacobinism,  we  had  established  trophies 
of  victory  in  the  West  Indies  as  well  as  in  the 
Mediterranean,  greater  than  the  gains  brought  us  by 
the  Peace  of  Utrecht  in  1713,  or  of  Paris  in  1763. 
Pitt  was  not  likely  to  be  too  lenient  a  critic  of 
Addington's  diplomacy.  He  acknowledged,  however, 
that  his  temporary  successor  and  rival  had  made  no 
concessions  which  he  himself  had  not  been  prepared 
to  offer  at  the  Lisle  Conference  in  1797,  when,  rather 
than  break  off  negotiations,  he  had  instructed  Malmes- 
bury  to  give  way  either  on  the  Cape  or  Ceylon.  There- 
fore, while  taking  exception  to  some  of  its  details,  Pitt 
was  entirely  for  the  Amiens  respite.  Not  that  it  would 
pave  the  way  to  a  final  settlement  or  that  with  Bona- 
parte any  lasting  pacification  was  possible.  But  as  he 
put  it,  rest  had  become  indispensable  to  this  country. 

The  course  of  Anglo- Russian  diplomacy  may  here 
be  resumed.  The  Peace  of  Amiens  and  the  incidents 
connected  with  it  at  once  began  to  change  for  the 
worse  the  relations  between  the  cabinets  of  London 
and  St  Petersburg.  To  the  Maltese  grievance  was 
now  added  the  Russian  complaint  of  England's  dis- 
loyalty as  an  ally  in  exacting  no  guarantees  against 
the  absorption  of  Turkey  for  which  Napoleon  and 
Talleyrand  were  intriguing.  Just  two  years  after 

Amiens,  in  the  May  of  1804,    Pitt's  trusted  friend,  the 

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The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

second  Lord  Harrowby,  afterwards  the  first  Earl, 
became  Foreign  Secretary.  To  him  Woronzow,. 
still  acting  as  the  Czar's  unofficial  ambassador,  com- 
plained of  British  ingratitude  for  Russian  services  in 
the  matter  of  Malta,  where  the  Czar  had  so  steadily 
discountenanced  the  schemes  of  France.  Harrowby 's 
predecessor  in  Downing  Street,  Hawkesbury,  had 
been  importuned,  not  so  much  for  political  reasons  as 
(Napoleon  desired  he  should  know)  on  grounds  of 
international  ethics,  to  put  down  the  newspaper  writers 
whose  attacks  so  grievously  affronted  the  honour  and 
wounded  the  conscience  of  the  First  Consul.  Nor  ought 
the  Channel  Islands  longer  to  furnish  an  asylum  for 
the  unscrupulous  £migr£s  who  were  equally  ready  to  stab 
with  their  pens  or  poignards  the  blameless  Bonaparte. 
This  species  of  French  diplomacy  reached  its  climax 
in  the  prosecution  of  Peltier,  a  French  subject  residing 
on  British  soil,  defended  on  the  charge  of  libel  by  Sir 
James  Mackintosh.  The  fashion  thus  set  of  charging 
the  diplomatic  atmosphere  with  moral  issues  soon 
found  a  follower  in  Russia.  Woronzow's  moral 
sensibilities  may  have  been  blunted  by  long  habituation 
to  the  ethical  laxity  of  Downing  Street.  Happily  the 
Czar  possessed  servants  whose  primitive  innocence 
was  untainted  by  and  proof  against  British  Machia- 
vellianism. Such  a  man  was  Novosiltzow,  who  reached 
London  during  1804,  as  an  apostle  rather  than 
ambassador,  to  implore  Harrowby's  co-operation  in 
preventing  the  atrocities  of  English  privateers  and  a 
general  retrogression  to  barbarism.  The  Novosiltzow 
mission  was  socially  a  success  ;  politically  it  could  not 
be  called  a  failure.  The  Czar's  latest  emissary  was  dined 

and  lionised  by  Fox,  Spencer,  and  the  whole  fine  flower 

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The   Foreign  Office  in  War  Time 

of  the  Carl  ton  House  set ;  a  few  months  later  he  writes 
home  that  he  is  going  to  change  the  English  Cabinet. 
The  combination  contrived  chiefly  by  Malmesbury 
and  George  Canning  against  Addington  had  indeed 
already  brought  about  Pitt's  recall.  His  second 
administration  had  begun.  In  the  spring  of  1805, 
Novosiltzow's  errand  of  treaty  -  mongering,  peace- 
patching,  piety  and  philanthropy  bore  fruit  in  the 
Treaty  of  St  Petersburg,  as  well  as  in  the  formation 
of  the  Anglo  -  Russian  -  Neapolitan  coalition  against 
France.  This  was  produced  less  by  Pitt's  diplomacy 
than  by  Napoleon's  latest  atrocities.  By  the  new  treaty 
also  the  Black  Sea  was  closed  against  English  pri- 
vateers, described  by  Russia  as  the  bane  of  the 
ocean  ;  it  was  in  fact  regarded  as  a  neutral  water, 
of  which  Turkey  and  Russia  were  part-owners. 
Harrowby  and  Novosiltzow  in  their  frequent  inter- 
views seem  rather  to  have  exchanged  fine  sentiments 
about  the  moral  law  as  the  one  true  diplomatic 
sanction,  than  to  have  condescended  to  business  details. 
Still,  on  either  side  a  keen  lookout  was  kept  for  the 
main  chance  The  last  move  in  the  English  military 
game  against  Napoleon  had  been  the  blockade  of  the 
Elbe.  That  interfered  with  Russian  commerce  as 
well  as  checked  the  common  enemy.  Novosiltzow 
ventured  to  hope  the  blockade  might  be  raised. 
Anxious  though  he  is  to  oblige  Russia,  Harrowby 
can  only  lay  his  hand  on  his  heart  and  avow  it  would 
be  a  sin  before  God  if  England  neglected  any  step  to 
crush  the  Colossus  that  oppresses  suffering  and  afflicted 
Europe.  The  Harrowby  -  Novosiltzow  colloquies 
retain  throughout  their  morally  didactic  character. 
The  English  complaint  that  Russia  tolerates  Asiatic 

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The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

cruelties  elicits  the  rejoinder  that  the  Czar  always  has 
been  and  is  the  champion  of  true  religion  and  the 
friend  of  real  humanity.  As  a  fact  the  spoliation  and 
oppression  of  Christians  in  Greece  or  elsewhere  in 
Eastern  Europe  are  due  chiefly  to  the  misconduct  of 
two  English  agents  in  the  Morea,  Morier  and  Foresti. 
A  new  pundit  from  St  Petersburg,  Czartoriski,  mean- 
while has  taken  up  his  parable  ;  on  i  Qth  August  1 804, 
he  has  formulated  the  suggestion  of  an  Anglo-  Russo- 
Turkish  treaty  as  the  best  solution  of  the  difficulty. 
About  this  point,  if  the  record  of  the  Russian  Foreign 
Office  may  be  trusted,  the  diplomatists  began  to  find 
mere  diplomacy  rather  monotonous  and  digressed  into 
conversations  on  a  variety  of  improving  themes 
ranging  from  fate,  free-will,  foreknowledge  absolute 
to  the  latest  masterpieces  in  political  writing,  especially 
Adam  Smith's  Wealth  of  Nations,  which  Pitt's 
approval  had  done  much  to  bring  into  vogue. 

Not  indeed  that  the  international  business  which 
had  brought  Novosiltzow  to  London  was  long  ignored. 
Between  the  British  and  Russian  Cabinets  the  arrange- 
ments for  a  coalition  against  France,  settled  by  the 
Treaty  of  St  Petersburg,  were  confirmed,  3ist  August 
1805,  by  the  Convention  of  Helsingborg ;  provided  a 
monthly  payment  by  England  of  ^1800  for  every 
thousand  men  co-operating  in  the  common  cause. 
The  pecuniary  stroke  completed,  Novosiltzow,  after  a 
conference  with  Pitt,  betook  himself  successively  to 
Vienna  and  Berlin  ;  at  the  former  he  settled  a  fighting 
treaty  between  Austria  and  Russia.  At  Berlin  he 
could  do  nothing,  for  the  simple  reason  that  by  this 
time  the  Prussian  Government  had  sold  themselves 
to  Napoleon  at  the  price  of  receiving  from  France  the 

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The  Foreign  Office  in   War  Time 

British  Electorate  of  Hanover.  Not  withstanding  their 
practical  preoccupation  with  robbery  all  round,  the 
controllers  of  the  diplomacy  of  the  period  never  forgot 
that  they  were  above  all  things  "  men  of  sentiment." 
Their  chief  professor  of  platitude  and  cant,  Novosiltzow, 
has  still  the  Czar's  instructions  to  formulate  a  new  code 
of  international  morals.  In  that  task  he  seeks  assist- 
ance from  the  greatest  English  lawyer  of  the  time, 
Sir  William  Scott,  afterwards  Lord  Stowell.  Observ- 
ing these  futile  operations  of  hypocrisy  and  rapacity 
combined,  Napoleon  quietly  observed  to  Talleyrand — 
'  There  is  no  diplomacy  like  that  of  the  boots  and  spurs, 
if  one  only  takes  one's  adversaries  separately  and  in  de- 
tail." That  indeed  was  the  Bonapartist  method.  Guided 
by  an  unerring  insight  into  the  situation,  political  as  well 
as  military,  it  defeated  the  combined  statesmanship  of 
Europe  at  its  own  game.  Austrian,  Prussian,  Russian, 
and  British  ambassadors  had  so  far  congratulated 
themselves  that,  while  their  colleagues  in  the  West 
were  being  outdone  at  every  turn  by  Bonaparte, 
they  had  kept  the  Sultan  from  being  drawn  into  the 
French  vortex.  Before  the  end  of  1806,  Turkey  had 
sought  protection  from  Russian  menaces  in  the  friend- 
ship of  France.  After  the  battle  of  Jena  the  Porte 
declared  war  against  Russia,  and  the  Czar  told  the 
English  ambassador  at  St  Petersburg  he  must  in 
future  rely  on  the  unassisted  forces  of  Great  Britain. 
Meanwhile  Napoleon  exemplified  his  favourite  inter- 
national methods  by  alternately  and  separately  treating 
with  Russia  and  England  in  the  intervals  of  his 
systematic  creation  of  difficulties  and  ill-will  between 
the  two.  Pitt's  most  lasting  contribution  to  English 
diplomacy  was  to  do  much  towards  redeeming  it,  in  the 

175 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

eyes  of  foreign  nations,  from  that  lack  of  continuity, 
said  by  foreign  critics  to  be  inseparable  from  party 
government.  In  the  "  Talents,"  ministry,  formed  on 
Pitt's  death,  January  1806,  Fox  for  the  third  time 
became  Foreign  Secretary  ;  he  had  already  been  in 
correspondence  with  Napoleon  on  the  subject  of  ending 
the  war.  Lord  Yarmouth,  so  conspicuous  at  various 
foreign  capitals  in  our  diplomacy  of  a  few  years  earlier, 
was  one  of  the  English  travellers  whom  Napoleon  had 
seized  and  kept  a  prisoner  ever  since  the  rupture  of 
the  Peace  of  Amiens ;  he  was  now  chosen  by  Fox  to 
discuss  terms  of  accommodation  with  Talleyrand.  The 
conditions  peremptorily  to  be  insisted  upon  by  him 
were  the  restitution  of  Hanover  to  England,  the  hand- 
ing over  of  Sicily  to  England  or  her  allies,  and  the 
British  retention  of  Malta  and  the  Cape  of  Good 
Hope.  Yarmouth  did  his  work  perfectly,  but  failed 
to  keep  Talleyrand  to  the  conditions  accepted  and 
advanced  by  Napoleon.  Mrs  Bouverie's  house  was 
then  a  great  social  centre  on  the  Whig  side.  Here 
Fox  arranged  a  later  mission  to  Napoleon  with  Lord 
Lauderdale,  but  with  no  better  result  than  the  former. 
As  in  1 806  Fox  carried  on  the  foreign  policy  of  Pitt,  so 
after  Fox  was  Napoleon  dealt  with  in  the  same  manner 
first  by  Howick,  the  future  Earl  Grey  of  the  Reform  Bill, 
secondly  by  his  Foreign  Office  successor,  George 
Canning. 


176 


CHAPTER  VIII 

HIGH    POLITICS   AND    HIGH    FINANCE 

Sir  James  Bland  Burges,  the  First  Foreign  Under-Secretary — The  State 
of  the  Foreign  Office  on  his  entering  it — George  III.  on  Dudley 
Ryder  (Lord  Harrowby) — Growing  connection  of  finance  with 
politics — The  founding  of  the  house  of  Rothschild — The  sources 
of  Pitt's  loans — The  process  of  treaty-making — The  exchange  of 
presents  between  the  negotiators — Sir  William  Hamilton  and  the 
snuff-boxes — Diplomatists'  perquisites  to-day — The  ethics  of 
diplomacy — Have  they  improved? — Secret  treaties — George 
Canning  becomes  Foreign  Secretary — The  fall  of  the  Holy 
Roman  Empire  (1806) — The  Berlin  Decrees — Canning  regarded 
as  an  upstart — The  Treaties  of  St  Petersburg  and  Bartenstein — 
Canning  refuses  to  grant  subsidies  to  England's  Allies — Russian 
resentment — The  Treaty  of  Tilsit — The  Orders  in  Council — 
The  secret  Tilsit  treaties — How  did  Canning  get  to  know  of 
them? — The  spy  Mackenzie — The  Count  d'Antraigues — Was 
Talleyrand  at  the  bottom  of  it  ? — The  attack  on  Denmark  justi- 
fiable— The  Crown  Prince  of  Denmark's  interview  with  Jackson 
the  English  envoy — The  results  of  Canning's  Danish  policy — 
The  Orders  in  Council  reissued — Relations  with  Portugal — 
Meditated  Anglo-Russo-Spanish  alliance. 

WITH  Canning  opens  a  new  era  in  our  diplomatic 
narrative.  Before  entering  upon  it,  some- 
thing may  be  said  about  the  administrative  machinery 
which  he  found  ready  to  his  hand,  as  well  as  about  the 
personal  and  inner  life  of  the  Foreign  Office  when  he 
first  undertook  its  management.  The  department,  it 
will  be  remembered,  had  no  sooner  been  formed  than 
its  earliest  chief,  Fox,  partly  perhaps  to  oblige  a  friend, 

engaged  an  assistant  in  the  person  of  R.  B.  Sheridan. 
M  177 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

Whoever  after  Sheridan  may  have  done  the  work  of 
the  position,  and  whatever  may  have  been  their  style, 
the  title, "  Under- Secretary  of  State  for  Foreign  Affairs," 
does  not  seem  to  have  been  in  general  use  till  it  was 
given  in  1789  by  the  Duke  of  Leeds  to  his  chief  under- 
strapper. The  person  thus  designated  was  James  Bland 
Burges,  who  had  sat  in  the  House  of  Commons  ;  he  was 
a  well-known  man  about  town,  of  literary  tastes,  and 
a  brother-in-law  of  the  Lady  Milbanke,  whose  daughter 
became  Lady  Byron  ;  he  received  a  salary  of  ^1500, 
and  he  had  for  his  junior  colleague  a  future  Secretary 
of  State,  already  described  in  these  pages,  Lord 
Harrowby,  then  Dudley  Ryder,  M.P.  Incidentally 
it  may  be  mentioned  that  a  lady  descended  from 
Bland  Burges  eventually  became  the  wife  of  the 
Foreign  Office  Under- Secretary  of  our  own  time  who 
died  Lord  Currie.  Meanwhile,  in  the  Foreign  Office 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  there  were  other  Under- 
secretaries not  inferior  in  importance  to  Bland  Burges. 
In  addition  to  Canning  himself,  who  in  that  capacity 
had  first  entered  the  department  in  1796,  there  was 
George  Hammond,  apparently  employed  by  the  jealous 
Grenville  to  be  a  check  upon  Canning  and  so  to 
ensure  despatches,  as  soon  as  they  were  deciphered, 
not  reaching  the  eyes  of  the  Prime  Minister  before 
their  examination  by  the  Secretary  of  State.  A 
curious  compound  of  conscientious  industry  and  naive 
conceit,  Bland  Burges,  in  the  portrait  he  has  painted 
of  himself,  stands  out  as  the  reorganiser,  if  not  in  a 
sense  the  real  maker,  of  the  department.  He  found 
the  place  a  chaos ;  he  left  it  a  pattern  of  method  and 
routine.  Mountains  of  despatches,  coming  from  or 

going  to   foreign  courts,  were  piled  up  in   confusion. 

178 


High  Politics  and  High   Finance 

No  note  of  their  contents  had  been  made  ;  nothing  in  the 
nature  of  an  index  had  been  attempted.  To  disinter  from 
the  accumulation  a  document  for  reference  was  to  search 
for  a  needle  in  a  hay-loft.  "  I  addressed  myself,"  said 
Burges,  "to  a  labour  of  Hercules."  The  new  official 
at  first  had  thoughts  of  docketing  and  arranging  the 
whole  mass  of  manuscripts.  The  united  clerks  of  the 
establishment  threatened  to  strike  if  the  task  was  not  re- 
duced to  rational  limits.  "If,"  said  the  Duke  of  Leeds 
to  his  Under- Secretary,  "  you  persist  in  this  freak  of 
quixotism,  you  will  have  the  establishment  to  yourself." 
Burges  therefore  had  to  content  himself  with  introducing 
a  system  on  which  it  remained  for  his  successors  to 
improve,  if  improvement  were  possible.  That  his 
heart  was  really  in  his  work  may  be  seen  from  his 
arrangements  for  the  day.  Between  9  and  10  a.m.  he 
reached  the  Foreign  Office  ;  there  was  no  break  for 
luncheon,  but  a  little  after  five  he  went  off  for  dinner  to 
the  French  Ambassador's,  looked  in  again  at  the  office 
for  an  hour  or  so  afterwards,  and  then  refreshed  himself 
with  supper  at  the  Duke's. 

In  those  days  George  III.  occasionally  paid  surprise 
visits  to  the  bureaux  of  State.  He  had  nothing  but 
praise  for  the  industrious  apprentice  at  the  Foreign 
Office,  and  sighed  much  over  the  contrast  presented  by 
the  "  idle  boy,"  the  second  Lord  Harrowby  that  was  to 
be.  "  I  cannot,"  parentally  observed  the  sovereign, 
"approve  a  peer's  eldest  son  being  in  this  place.  If 
Mr  Ryder  wished  to  learn  effective  business,  he  ought 
to  have  done  so  as  a  Lord  of  the  Admiralty,  where  he 
might  have  found  plenty  to  do.  Surely  it  is  extremely 
strange  that  an  Under-Secretary  should  be  running 

about  to  races  and  watering-places  instead  of  doing  his 

179 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

duty.     Only  last  week  I  saw  him  at  Weymouth  when 
I  know  he  ought  to  have  been  at  his  desk." 

As  might  have  been  expected  in  so  hard  a  worker, 
Bland  Burges  proved  a  great  stickler  for  the  honour  of  his 
department.  The  Duke  of  Leeds,  though  pompous,  was 
by  no  means  dull ;  but  he  shirked  the  drudgery  of  detail, 
and  was  always  ready  to  relieve  himself  and  his  staff 
by  passing  on  troublesome  business  to  another  depart- 
ment. In  this  way  he  had  allowed  Hawkesbury,  when 
at  the  Board  of  Trade,  to  conduct  certain  negotiations 
about  Customs'  duties  and  revenue  which  really  be- 
longed to  the  Foreign  Office.  "  I  never,"  said  Bland 
Burges  of  his  chief,  "  see  him  in  office  hours  without 
being  reminded  of  a  man  crossing  a  stream  on  stepping- 
stones,  so  carefully,  that  his  shoes  always  keep  dry." 

The  Under- Secretary  shrewdly  saw  in  Pitt  the 
supreme  master  of  the  whole  administration ;  from 
the  first,  therefore,  he  determined  to  make  himself 
indispensable  to  the  Prime  Minister  rather  than  to 
the  chief  of  his  own  department.  He  constantly 
brought  to  Pitt's  notice  facts  that  it  might  serve 
him  to  know,  and  individuals  whom  he  might  find 
useful,  especially  in  his  financial  operations.  If  his 
memory  may  be  trusted,  Bland  Burges  once  helped 
Pitt  in  his  private  affairs  to  the  extent  of  ^1000. 
Against  this  statement  one  may  set  Disraeli's  character- 
istic words  about  the  statesman  on  whom  in  so  many 
ways  he  modelled  himself.  "  Mr  Pitt  always  preferred 
a  usurer  to  a  friend,  and  to  the  last  day  of  his  life 
borrowed  money  at  sixty  per  cent."  Maret  described 
the  war  which  the  French  Convention  declared  against 
England,  in  1793,  as  one  got  up  by  stock-jobbers. 

Undoubtedly,  the  City  first  began  prominently  to 

1 80 


High  Politics  and  High  Finance 

figure  in  and  vitally  to  influence  home  and  foreign 
politics  during  the  wars  of  the  French  Revolution.  The 
most  notorious  Continental  diplomatist  of  this  period, 
Talleyrand,  had  been  bred  for  a  priest  before  being 
promoted  to  the  head  agency  of  Napoleon's  political 
intrigues  ;  similarly  the  capitalist  who  first  illustrated 
and  cemented  the  mutual  relationships  between  finance 
and  statesmanship  had  been  brought  up  for  a  rabbi 
in  the  synagogue  of  his  native  town,  Frankfort-on-the 
Maine.  Talleyrand  was  the  earliest  among  statesmen 
to  recognise  in  the  controllers  of  the  money-market 
the  eventual  masters  of  sovereigns,  statesmen,  am- 
bassadors and  generals.  His  first  visit  to  England, 
in  1792,  was  at  least  as  much  financial  as  political. 
On  his  way  he  had  felt  the  pulse  of  Continental 
capitalists — among  them,  it  may  be  conjectured,  the 
patriarch  of  the  Rothschild  clan,  then  just  beginning 
to  be  a  personal  force  in  contemporary  affairs.  He 
was  thus  prepared,  on  presenting  himself  in  Downing 
Street,  to  show  the  English  Government  with  what 
ease  and  safety  it  might  supplement  a  French  alliance 
with  a  guarantee  of  a  French  loan. 

Nathan  Meyer  Rothschild,  who  on  reaching  England 
first  took  up  his  residence  at  Manchester,  did  not 
establish  his  business  in  London  till  1 798.  By  that  date, 
however,  other  branches  of  his  family,  transplanting 
themselves  from  their  native  Judengasse,  had  rooted 
themselves  in  several  of  the  great  European  centres. 
If  perhaps  unlikely,  it  is  therefore  chronologically  just 
possible  that  the  Rothschilds  may  have  been  among 
the  capitalists  mentioned  by  Bland  Burges  to  Pitt 
as  available  for  floating  his  enormous  war  loans.  Of 

Bland    Burges   himself  it   may    be    said   that   official 

181 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

diligence   was   his    forte   and   social    omniscience   his 

foible.     With    Burges,   Pitt   repeatedly  discussed    the 

details   of    ways   and    means    for   the  public   service. 

The   records   of    the   conversations    that   have   been 

handed    down    contain    indeed    no    mention    of    the 

Rothschild  name.     With   an   accuracy  and   freshness 

of    detail    insured    by   his    access   to   the   innermost 

archives  of  Downing  Street,   Lord  Rosebery  has   so 

fully  described  Pitt's  subsidies  that  little  need  be  said 

about  them  here.      They  were  of  two  kinds  :    direct 

gifts,   or  guaranteed  loans,  which  came  to  much  the 

same  thing.     The  tenders  for  loans  from  1799  onwards 

were   too  closely  connected  with   the   political   work 

of  the  department  to  have  been  ignored  at  the  Foreign 

Office.       None  of  these  tenders   came   from  foreign 

financiers,  whose  agents,  in  fact,  were  then  in  London,  not 

to  lend  but  to  borrow  for  their  respective  governments. 

Pitt's   close   confidant    in    money    matters,    public 

as   well   as   private,   was  his  friend   Thomas   Coutts, 

the  founder  of  the  famous  bank  where  the  minister 

kept    his    account,    and    whither,    in    recognition    of 

the  firm's  serviceable  patriotism,  George  III.  directed 

his  private  patronage.*     Pitt's  administrations  lasted 

from  23rd  December  1783  to  i7th  March  1801,  and 

from  1 5th  May  1804  to  IItn  February  1806.     During 

*  The  facts  of  the  first  Earl  of  Harrowby  having  been  not  only  Pitt's 
Foreign  Secretary  but  his  intimate  friend,  and  of  the  fifth  Earl  being 
a  partner  in  Coutts3  Bank,  seem  to  have  caused  some  confusion.  As 
Pitt's  acquaintance,  the  first  Earl  may  or  may  not  have  been  known 
to  the  Messieurs  Coutts  of  those  days.  The  connection  between  the 
family  of  Ryder  and  the  bank  of  Coutts  only  began  in  the  nineteenth 
century,  when  the  fourth  Earl  was  introduced  to  the  banking  firm  by 
Lady  Burdett  Coutts.  For  these  facts  I  am  indebted  to  Mr  George 
Marjoribanks  of  Messrs  Coutts  &  Co.,  as  well  as  for  searching  the  bank 
records  to  ascertain  that  none  of  Pitt's  war  loans  were  floated  by  Messrs 
Coutts. 

[82 


High  Politics  and  High   Finance 

these  two  terms  some  of  his  transactions  were  with 
bankers  as  a  body,  some  through  a  single  firm  asking  on 
their  own  and  other's  behalf.  The  houses  with  which 
Pitt  thus  negotiated  his  loans  in  the  years  now  specified, 
were,  Robarts,  Curtis  &  Co.  ;  Boldero,  Lushington  & 
Co. ;  Smith,  Payne  &  Smiths  ;  Newnham,  Everett  & 
Co. ;  Esdaile  &  Co.  ;  Goldsmid  &  Solomons ;  Sir  F. 
Baring ;  Barnes  &  Co.  ;  Battye  &  Co.  ;  Steers  & 
Mortimer ;  Jacob  &  D.  Ricardo  ;  and  the  committee 
of  the  Stock  Exchange.* 

Among  the  usages  of  the  Foreign  Office  now 
under  consideration  is  the  process,  so  often  mentioned 
in  these  pages,  of  treaty-making.  This  may  briefly 
be  described.  Two  nations  or  more,  as  the  case 
may  be,  decide  that  the  time  has  come  to  make 
a  treaty,  convention  or  agreement,  on  lines  about 
which  they  are  generally  unanimous.  Sometimes 
a  very  early  interchange  of  opinions  by  the  govern- 
ments concerned  reveals  a  divergence  of  view  so 
serious  as  to  preclude  all  hope  of  agreement 
being  reached ;  in  that  case,  the  original  intention  is 
abandoned  and  the  meeting  of  plenipotentiaries  never 
takes  place.  The  first  stage  is  reached  when  plenipo- 
tentiaries on  both  sides  are  named.  These  then  meet 
and  show  each  other  their  full  powers — in  other  words, 
the  authority  to  negotiate  given  them  by  their  re- 
spective governments.  Among  the  officials  who  thus 
assemble,  one  may  be  expected  to  put  forward  a  draft 
treaty,  prepared  before  he  has  come  into  conference, 
as  a  basis  of  negotiation.  The  other  side  examines  it, 
either  accepts  it  as  a  starting-point,  or  puts  forward 

*  For  these  details  of  Pitt's  war-loans,  now  given  for  the  first  time, 
I  have  to  express  my  obligations  to  Mr  A.  T.  King  of  the  National  Debt 
Office. 

183 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

a  differently-worded  document  known  as  a  counter- 
draft.  In  this  way  there  gradually  come  into 
existence,  a  set  of  proposals,  whose  general  tenor 
the  negotiators  approve.  Then  ensues  the  discus- 
sion of  the  document,  article  by  article,  clause 
by  clause.  Alterations  and  amendments  are  now 
proposed,  disputed  points  are  referred  by  the 
plenipotentiaries  to  their  respective  governments. 
After  a  length  of  time,  which  varies  according  to 
the  subject-matter,  there  is  elaborated  a  form  of 
words  satisfactory  to  all  the  parties  concerned. 
Signatures  are  now  affixed ;  even  after  that  the  treaty 
does  not  come  into  force  till  there  have  been  ex- 
changed by  the  signatories  ratifications  ;  in  monarchies 
these  are  given  by  the  sovereign,  in  republics  by 
the  Chambers.  The  method  of  procedure  pursued 
in  the  making  of  treaties  has  undergone  no  great 
change  since  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries. 
To-day,  however,  the  plenipotentiary  stands  at  one 
end  of  a  telegraph  wire  whose  other  extremity  is 
held  by  his  chief  at  home.  His  responsibility,  or 
consequently  opportunity,  of  making  his  mark  by 
a  personal  contribution  to  foreign  policy  has  become 
much  less  than  formerly. 

The  European  equivalent  of  the  Oriental  backsheesh 
traditionally  connected  itself  with  the  treaty-making  of 
the  eighteenth  and  early  nineteenth  centuries.  In  the 
September  of  1793  the  British  ambassador  at  Naples, 
Sir  William  Hamilton,  announces  to  the  London 
Foreign  Office  the  conclusion  of  a  convention  with  the 
Neapolitan  Government ;  he  passes  as  a  matter  of  course 
to  the  exchange  of  presents  between  the  diplomatic 

staffs  engaged  on  both  sides.     The  sums  distributed  in 

184 


High  Politics  and  High   Finance 

money  gifts  among  the  Italian  and  British  officials 
employed,  and  paid  into  the  respective  Foreign  Offices 
of  the  two  countries,  amounted  to  ^500  on 
each  side.  In  addition  to  this  the  King  of  Naples, 
through  his  ambassador  in  London,  the  Marquis 
Circello,  sent  the  British  Secretary  of  State,  Grenville, 
a  snuff-box  set  in  diamonds,  valued  at  one  thousand 
pounds.  An  article  of  the  same  sort,  presented  by 
the  Neapolitan  sovereign  to  the  British  ambassador, 
Hamilton,  cost  but  ^"500,  though  twice  that  sum  seems 
to  have  been  allowed  for  it  by  the  Neapolitan  court. 
"This,"  complains  Sir  William  Hamilton,  "is  the  only 
perquisite  that  has  fallen  to  my  lot  in  nearly  thirty  years' 
residence  ;  it  is  hard  to  be  jockeyed  out  of  half  its  value." 
Canning  went  to  the  Foreign  Office  first,  as 
Parliamentary  Under- Secretary,  in  January  1796. 
The  snuff-box  question  was  then  going  on ;  it 
formed  the  subject  of  one  of  his  brightest  foreign 
office  jeux  cTesprit.  By  this  time  it  was  an  under- 
stood thing  that  the  English  ambassador  negoti- 
ating a  treaty  should  draw  on  Downing  Street  for 
^500,  to  be  given  to  the  members  of  the  foreign 
government  concerned  in  negotiating  the  treaty. 
A  similar  sum  was  allotted  to  the  British  negotiators 
by  their  foreign  colleagues.  There  had  now  grown  up 
a  practice  on  the  part  of  the  Downing  Street  staff  of 
claiming  these  foreign  gifts  as  their  own  perquisites. 
This  habit  had  not  been  resisted  by  Lord  Henley,  Lord 
Minto's  predecessor  at  the  British  Embassy  in  Vienna. 
Grenville,  as  Foreign  Secretary,  supported  the  Downing 
Street  claim.  When  treaties  were  in  progress  of 
making,  much  bickering  was  exchanged  between  the 
office  at  home  and  the  embassies  abroad.  The  Foreign 

185 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

Office   drew  bills   on  the  embassies.     The  embassies 
promptly  dishonoured  them. 

With  Canning  in  his  Under- Secretarial  days  was 
associated  in  Downing  Street  John  Hookham  Frere, 
the  translator  of  Aristophanes  and  the  versifier  whose 
"  whistlecraft "  gave  Byron  the  metre  for  Don  Juan. 
The  two  friends  together  composed  the  metrical  draft 
to  the  British  representative  at  Vienna  ;  a  single  stanza 
is  enough  to  show  the  drift  of  the  whole — 

"  Let  the  snuff-box  belong  to  Lord  Minto  ; 
But  as  for  the  five  hundred  pund, 
I'll  be  judged  by  Almeida  or  Pinto, 
If  his  Chancery  must  not  refund." 

The  pleasant  custom  of  giving  snuff-boxes,  or  gratifica- 
tions in  other  shapes,  has  now  completely  lapsed.  The 
only  perquisite  that  ever  falls  to  a  minister  or  ambas- 
sador to-day  is  when  ''full  powers"  have  been  sent 
him  to  negotiate  and  sign  a  treaty  ;  to  these  powers  is 
attached  an  impression  of  the  Great  Seal,  enclosed  in  a 
copper  box  of  more  or  less  ornamental  design.  This 
box  the  diplomat  is  allowed  to  keep  as  an  interesting 
memento,  but  its  value  is  only  a  very  few  shillings. 
Should  the  treaty,  however,  deal  with  a  royal  marriage, 
the  box  is  of  silver.  Without  its  innocent  little  pick- 
ings, diplomacy  to  the  officials  of  Pitt's  and  even  of 
Canning's  time  would  have  seemed  shorn  not  only  of 
its  romance,  but  of  one  among  its  solid  and  perfectly 
legitimate  attractions.  For  the  Secretary  of  State,  for 
the  ambassador,  and  for  the  gentlemen  immediately 
attached  to  these,  there  were,  as  has  been  seen,  be- 
jewelled arrangements  of  gold  and  tortoiseshell,  readily 
exchangeable  in  the  market  for  ready  cash.  The 

satellites  of  the  great  men  to  whom  came  the  lion's 

1 86 


High  Politics  and  High   Finance 

share  of  the  spoils  may  seem  to  have  been  ungenerously 
dealt  with.  They  did  their  best,  however,  to  find 
reciprocal  compensation  in  exchanging  smaller  gifts 
with  each  other.  Thus  excluded  from  all  chance 
in  the  scramble  for  the  ^500  worth  of  valu- 
ables, a  man  in  the  position  of  Bland  Burges 
thinks  himself  in  luck  if  he  receives  a  quarter  cask  of 
Malaga  wine,  as  well  as  some  boxes  of  almonds,  raisins 
and  grapes,  from  a  former  colleague  then  accredited  to 
the  Spanish  court,  William  Douglas  Brodie. 

The  snuff-box  tradition  lingered  on  at  court  long  after 
snuff-taking  had  gone  out.  During  her  sojourns  abroad, 
Queen  Victoria,  before  she  gave  her  famous  shawls, 
now  and  then  presented  a  snuff-box.  The  fourth  Earl  of 
Malmesbury,  the  Foreign  Secretary,  when  minister  in 
attendance  on  the  late  sovereign,  speaks  of  such  a  gift 
going  to  the  wrong  person.  The  mistake  was  only  dis- 
covered when  the  snuff-box  had  been  converted  into  coin. 

Does  the  desuetude  into  which  have  fallen  these 
pleasant  little  customs,  and  all  formerly  comprehended 
by  the  term  ''gratifications,"  coincide  with  any  im- 
provement in  the  ethics  of  diplomacy  ?  That  is  a 
question  apposite  enough  to  the  fresh  chapter  in  our 
international  story  opening  with  George  Canning. 
The  best  answer  to  it  will  be  given  by  a  short  state- 
ment of  facts.  Diplomacy  has  been  called  the  war  of 
peace-time.  Its  progress  ought  therefore  to  have 
been  marked  by  some  of  those  ameliorations  which 
have  taken  place  in  the  usages  of  arms.  Explosive 
bullets  were  prohibited  before  the  first  Hague 
Conference  by  one  of  the  Geneva  Conventions.  At 
the  Hague  Conference  England,  yielding  to  pressure 
caused  by  spite,  abandoned  even  the  use  of  the 

187 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

Dum-Dum  expanding  bullet.  Is  it  possible  to 
record  some  analogous  concessions  to  the  moral  law 
in  the  international  practices  of  peace  ?  What  are 
the  facts  ?  To-day,  as  much  as  in  the  time  of 
Chatham,  despatches  are  systematically  intercepted 
in  the  post  by  Continental  powers.  In  all  countries, 
too,  telegrams  from  abroad  which  appear  to  be  possibly 
political  are  at  once  submitted  to  the  executive. 
Thus,  if  England  wants  to  convey  anything  indirectly 
to  the  French  or  German  Government,  no  cipher  is 
used ;  the  information  is  telegraphed,  without  any 
attempt  at  disguise,  to  an  English  official  at  an 
agreed  address  abroad.  As  for  secret  treaties  and  the 
whole  machinery  of  deception  implied  by  them,  these 
things  have  now  gone  out  of  fashion,  for  the  simple 
reason  that  they  are  no  longer  possible.  The  last  in- 
stance of  a  compact  of  this  kind  was  the  re-engage- 
ment treaty  by  which  Prince  Bismarck  virtually  upset 
the  Triple  Alliance  after  his  consent  to  it  had  been  ex- 
torted from  him.  As  for  the  Triple  Alliance  itself, 
that  has  never  been  a  matter  of  diplomatic  confidence. 
Such  privacy  is  impossible  in  the  case  of  anything  to 
which  Italy  is  a  party.  In  1878,  the  Anglo-Turkish 
arrangement  about  Cyprus  was  made  on  the  eve  of  a 
conference  and  could  only  remain  confidential  for 
three  weeks.  It  was  accompanied  by  several  other 
arrangements  of  a  like  kind,  notably  those  relating  to 
Austria's  position  in  Bosnia.  Governments  exchange 
confidential  letters.  England  and  Italy  have  done  so 
on  two  occasions  on  subjects  of  common  interest,  such 
as  the  maintenance  of  the  status  quo  in  the  Mediter- 
ranean. But  since  1878,  no  really  secret  treaty  has 

been  executed.    Parliaments  are  now  active.    A  country 

188 


High  Politics  and  High   Finance 

under  parliamentary  rule  could  enter  into  no  engage- 
ment that  would  not  at  once  become  the  subject  of 
parliamentary  question.  The  result  of  a  ministerial 
refusal  to  reply  would  be  the  inference  that  such  a 
treaty  existed.  That  inference  would  be  fatal  to  its 
secrecy.  If  on  the  other  hand  the  treaty  were  denied, 
the  denial  would  have  the  effect  of  weakening  any  en- 
gagement that  might  actually  exist. 

While  these  lines  are  being  written,  the  Secretary 
of  State  for  Foreign  Affairs  is  Sir  Edward  Grey.  As 
nearly  as  possible  a  hundred  years  ago  his  ancestor, 
Earl  Grey,  then  Lord  Ho  wick,  on  the  death  of  Fox, 
filled  the  same  office.  Fox  lived  just  long  enough  to 
know  that  his  diplomacy,  even  when  most  vigorous 
and  skilful,  had  been  baffled  by  Napoleon  at  every 
point.  Where  Fox  had  failed,  Grey  scarcely  tried  in 
earnest  to  succeed.  Fox  must  have  foreseen  also  the 
fall  of  the  ministry  to  which  he  belonged  on  the  same 
question,  that  of  the  Catholic  claims,  as  had  proved 
fatal  to  his  rival  Pitt.  The  succession,  under  the 
Duke  of  Portland,  of  George  Canning  to  the  Foreign 
Office  is  memorable  for  other  reasons  than  the 
sustained  vigour  of  his  administration.  It  had  ceased 
to  be  a  war  between  governments  ;  it  had  become  on 
the  part  of  the  English  people  a  struggle  for  existence. 
Canning,  in  this  respect  as  in  others  the  true  successor 
of  Chatham  and  of  his  son,  saw  the  time  had  come  for 
independence  of  official  traditions,  of  Cabinet  cliques. 
Policy  abroad,  he  urged,  must  be  based  on  the 
patriotism,  the  good  sense  and  the  resolution  of  the  tax- 
payers and  electors  at  home.  The  disappearance  of 
the  Holy  Roman  Empire  removed,  in  1806,  the  key- 
stone of  the  arch  in  the  international  system  whose 

189 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

influences  had  shaped  and  coloured  all  European 
diplomacy  before  Canning's  control  of  the  Foreign 
Office.  In  the  European  welter  that  had  come  with  1 789 
men  scarcely  noticed  the  fall  of  the  institution  which  had 
begun  when,  one  thousand  and  six  years  earlier,  Pope 
Leo  had  placed  the  Imperial  crown  on  the  brow  of  the 
Prankish  king.  All  that  at  the  point  now  reached 
the  world  had  been  concerned  to  observe  was  the 
successive  overthrow  by  Napoleon  of  the  Austrian 
sovereign  as  the  representative  of  the  old  Rome,  and 
of  the  Czar  as  the  Imperial  legatee  of  the  new.  The 
emperor  was  still  a  supreme  power,  when,  as  Under- 
secretary in  1796,  Canning  had  drawn  up  the  English 
answer  to  Spain's  excuse  for,  in  the  face  of  existing 
treaties,  allying  herself  with  France.  Canning  then 
held  no  office ;  he  had,  however,  during  Adding- 
ton's  administration,  when  Hawkesbury  was  at  the 
Foreign  Office,  made  himself  the  mouthpiece  of 
those  who  held  Napoleon's  policy  in  Egypt  and 
the  Levant  to  be  conclusive  against  substituting 
for  the  war  a  hollow  peace.  By  the  Berlin  Decree, 
November  1806,  Bonaparte,  posing  as  the  lineal 
successor  of  Charlemagne,  had  declared  Great  Britain 
outside  the  pale  of  European  comity.  In  Prussia,  the 
diplomatists  and  the  whole  official  class  were  full  of  re- 
sentment against  Napoleon  for  the  humiliation  of  the 
treaty  of  Schonbrunn.  This  feeling  gradually  spread 
among  their  fellow-countrymen.  It  was  not  therefore 
Prussian  diplomacy  but  Prussian  patriotism,  though  as 
yet  imperfectly  organised,  which  produced  the  reaction 
that  proved  eventually  fatal  to  the  French  emperor, 
who  was  now  concerned  to  find  a  capable  confederate 

in  executing  his  scheme  of  universal  monarchy. 

190 


High  Politics  and  High   Finance 

In  England,  so  far,  politics  had  been,  and  to  a  great 
extent  still  remained,  a  lordly  game,  the  most  active 
players  in  which  were  the  great  patrician  or  at  least 
titled  families.  Its  accurate  as  well  as  traditional 
knowledge  of  diplomacy  confirmed  the  ascendancy  of 
the  Upper  House  in  foreign  politics,  and  made  the 
Foreign  Office  itself  an  appanage  for  the  nobility.  So 
far  Fox  was  the  only  commoner  who  had  been 
Secretary  of  State  for  Foreign  Affairs  ;  Fox  himself 
was  the  son  of  a  lord,  and  the  nephew  of  a  duke. 
Descended  from  the  Bristol  Canynges,  the  rebuilders  of 
St  Mary  Redcliff  church  in  1470,  the  Foreign 
Secretary  could  indeed  point  to  a  descent  more  ancient 
than  that  of  half  the  peerage.  Like  Chatham,  how- 
ever, he  had  not  been  born  into  the  ruling  class.  His 
more  recent  ancestors  had  settled  at  Garvagh  in  Stuart 
times  ;  his  father  had  married  beneath  him  ;  his  son 
was  sneered  at  by  the  exalted  classes  who  had  long 
manned  the  Foreign  Office  as  a  young  Irish  adventurer; 
he  owed  his  start  in  life,  they  said,  to  having  been 
taken  away  from  the  second-class  actress,  his  mother, 
by  a  rich  uncle.  Even  George  Canning's  brilliant  suc- 
cesses at  Eton  and  Christchurch  hurt  rather  than 
helped  him  with  the  magnates,  Tory  and  Whig  alike, 
who  from  Bolingbroke's  day  had  detested  and  dis- 
trusted "that  d d  intellect."  Pitt,  however,  sent 

for  him.  Then  came  the  parliamentary  seat  so  easily 
arranged  in  those  days  for  youths  of  promise  ;  this  was 
followed  six  years  later  by  marriage  to  an  heiress,  the 
Duchess  of  Portland's  sister,  with  a  fortune  that  made 
her  husband  independent  of  profession  or  of  office. 
Canning's  career  thus  presents  no  exception  to  the 

absolute    rule    that    in    England    private    wealth    is 

191 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

the  indispensable  condition  of  public  success.  It 
was,  however,  strikingly  appropriate  to  the  new  socio- 
political order  now  beginning  that  the  first  man  of 
genius  who,  since  Fox,  on  the  Whig  side,  had 
managed  the  Foreign  Office,  should  be  warned  off  as  a 
trespasser  and  cold-shouldered  as  a  parvenu. 

In  Canning's  day  any  particularly  exciting  question 
that  turned  up  was  called,  in  Foreign  Office  slang,  "a 
bustle."  The  new  Secretary  of  State  had  been  at  his 
post  only  six  months  when  there  came  upon  him  a 
greater  "  bustle"  than  any  the  department  had  known 
since  the  Oczakow  affair  of  1792,  and  in  comparison 
with  which  for  its  results  Oczakow  was  insignificant. 
Apart  from  the  personal  energy  and  spirit  of 
Canning,  the  Portland  administration,  in  which  he 
first  became  Secretary  of  State,  was  pledged,  by 
the  Pittites  who  formed  its  backbone,  to  a  policy 
worthy  of  their  departed  master.  One  vital  modi- 
fication of  its  methods  was,  however,  admitted. 
Half-hearted  coalitions  paid  by  England  were  to  be 
given  over.  Here  Canning  would  have  found  himself 
in  general  agreement  with  Fox.  When  the  third 
coalition  uniting  England,  Austria,  and  Russia  against 
France  was  formed  by  the  Treaty  of  St  Petersburg 
(1805),  Canning  indeed  had  himself  protested  against 
these  arrangements.  "  Let  us,"  he  said,  "  in  future 
rather  turn  our  attention  to  helping  all  states  who  of 
their  own  free  will  go  against  Napoleon."  Pitt's 
negotiations  with  that  end  were  actively  going  on  at 
the  moment  of  his  death.  They  were  continued  by 
Fox  as  soon  as  the  peace  discussions  of  1806  had 
manifestly  become  a  failure.  Fox,  however,  in 

the    "  Talents "    administration    had     concurred    with 

192 


High  Politics  and  High  Finance 

Grenville  as  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury  in  starving 
the  war  and  withholding  that  vigorous  application  of 
resources  which  would  have  at  least  attached  their 
allies  if  it  had  not  actually  brought  the  struggle  to  a 
close.  Castlereagh,  when  becoming  War  and  Colonial 
Secretary,  had,  like  Canning,  made  it  a  condition  that 
this  ill-timed  parsimony  and  slackness  should  cease. 
The  two  men  began  by  providing  the  King  of  Prussia 
with  £100,000  in  cash  and  military  stores  for  200,000 
men.  At  the  Foreign  Office,  Canning's  first  task  was 
to  negotiate  with  Austria  about  a  European  pacifica- 
tion, but  on  the  express  condition  of  united  action  by 
all  the  allies  against  France.  The  Russian  grievance 
against  England  was  deepened  by  rumours  of  diplo- 
matic dealings  between  England  and  Sweden.  The 
Czar  then  began  to  complain  of  Britain's  bad  faith  in 
the  matter  of  subsidies.  Nevertheless,  in  April  1806, 
he  became  a  party  to  the  Treaty  of  Bartenstein 
pledging  England,  Prussia,  Russia,  Sweden,  to  carry 
on  the  war  together  and  not  without  each  other's 
approval  to  make  peace.  Thus  far  Prussia  had  not 
given  England  much  reason  to  trust  her  as  an  ally, 
whether  in  diplomacy  or  in  the  field.  She  is  now  to 
appear  in  a  new  character.  Towards  the  end  of  June 
1807,  Napoleon  had  broken  the  army  of  the  Czar  at 
Eylau.  After  that  battle  the  French  conqueror  tried 
to  bribe  Prussia  to  desert  her  vanquished  ally ;  the 
offer  was  refused — with  what  results  to  Prussia  her- 
self will  presently  be  seen.  Meanwhile,  Napoleon's 
necessities  were  to  furnish  a  novel  and  interesting 
illustration  of  the  growing  connection  between  the 
rulers  of  states  and  the  controllers  of  the  money 

market.       The    military    operations    against     Russia 
N  193 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

were  about  to  be  crowned  by  the  victory  of  Fried- 
land  ;  these  made  it  desirable  that  he  should  secure  the 
goodwill  of  so  important  a  section  of  the  Czar's 
subjects  as  was  formed  by  the  descendants  of  the 
chosen  race  domiciled  in  Southern  Russia.  At  the 
same  time,  as  Talleyrand  shrewdly  remarked,  and  as 
that  diplomatist  has  been  seen  to  possess  good  reason 
for  knowing,  the  Hebrew  capitalists  were  the  men  cap- 
able above  all  others  of  replenishing  the  Imperial 
purse.  Limits  to  the  possibilities  even  of  Prussian 
plunder  had  begun  to  hint  themselves  ;  if  Prussia  was 
drained  the  French  troops  must  find  a  new  paymaster. 
Napoleon  did  not  go  to  the  Jews.  He  assembled 
them  at  Paris  in  a  meeting  impressively  representative 
of  their  intelligence  not  less  than  of  their  wealth.* 

The  supreme  achievement  of  Canning's  first  Secre- 
taryship of  State  was  now  at  hand.  The  Foreign 
Minister's  declared  refusal  to  follow  the  example  of 
his  master  Pitt,  in  the  matter  of  coalitions,  paid  by 
England  and  not  earning  their  money,  had  not  pre- 
vented him  from  sending  ^£2  50,000  to  Austria  soon 
after  he  took  office,  as  well  as  smaller  amounts, 
together  with  stores  and  troops  to  Russia.  The  Czar, 
however,  through  the  head  of  his  Foreign  Office, 
General  Budberg,  appeared  before  the  English 
ambassador  at  St  Petersburg  as  a  martyr  suffering  in 
mind,  body  and  estate  from  his  simple-hearted  con- 
fidence in  England's  violated  promises  indefinitely,  if 
need  be,  to  supply  those  sinews  of  a  war  into  which 
Alexander  had  entered  not  from  any  motives  of  per- 
sonal profit,  but  from  a  disinterested  feeling  of  duty  to 
the  peace  and  welfare  of  Europe.  To  the  injustice 

*  Daru's  Report  of  the  Finances  of  1806.     Bignon,  vol.  vii.  pp.  279-280. 

194 


High  Politics  and  High   Finance 

done  by  England  to  himself  must  be  added  the  injuries 
inflicted  upon  the  commerce  of  his  realm  by  Great 
Britain's  persistent  opposition  to  the  Maritime  League 
of  the  Northern  Powers.  Hence,  he  said,  the  wrongs 
sustained  from  English  ships  by  the  commercial  inter- 
ests of  his  realm.  Such,  briefly,  was  the  Russian  case 
against  England.  The  charges  were  disposed  of  by 
Canning  in  a  famous  despatch.  The  refutation  had,  of 
course,  irritated  the  Czar  rather  than  convinced  him. 
After  the  decisive  defeat  of  his  troops  at  Friedland,  he 
determined  to  violate  the  promise  he  had  given  in  the 
Treaty  of  Bartenstein  of  refusing  any  accommodation 
with  Napoleon  which  did  not  include  his  allies.  He 
therefore  obtained  an  armistice  from  the  victor,  and 
arranged  the  famous  meeting  with  Napoleon  on  a  raft  in 
the  river  Niemen,  off  the  town  of  Tilsit.  What  followed 
was  a  new  version  of  the  Bourbon  Family  Compact 
brought  to  light  by  the  elder  Pitt. 

The  most  amazing  stipulations  of  the  Tilsit  agree- 
ment between  the  two  Caesars  did  not  directly  affect 
England  and  may  be  very  briefly  summarised.  The 
point  from  which  they  started  was  the  overthrow  of  the 
Bourbon  monarchy  in  Spain,  of  the  Braganza  line  in 
Portugal,  of  the  Turkish  Sultanate  if  necessary,  and  of 
any  other  institutions  which  might  interfere  with  Bona- 
parte's distribution  of  European  countries  among  kings 
belonging  to  his  own  family,  or  with  the  rearrangement 
of  Central  European  states  ;  these  were  to  be  parcelled 
out  so  as  to  become  the  most  effectual  bulwarks  of  the 
usurper's  throne.  In  exchange  for  Russian  neutrality 
or  help  with  regard  to  those  projects,  the  Czar  was  at 
once  to  have  a  free  hand  in  Finland ;  he  was  to  be 
allowed  to  absorb  the  entire  European  dominions  of 

195 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

the  Porte  and  to  push  his  conquests  up  to  the  Golden 
Horn.  One  significant  condition  the  French  emperor 
insisted  on.  The  Czar  was  not  in  any  event  to  possess 
Constantinople.  Mr  Gladstone's  "bag  and  baggage" 
policy  of  a  generation  since  was  anticipated  to  the  letter 
by  the  nineteenth-century  Charlemagne  in  a  characteris- 
tically vigorous  phrase — "  Those  brutes  of  Turks  "  were 
to  be  expelled  from  Europe.  Their  capital,  however, 
must  not  pass  into  the  hands  of  any  European  Power. 
The  secret  articles  of  the  Tilsit  Convention  directed 
against  Great  Britain  scarcely  occupied  a  morning's 
talk.  The  English  Government  was  to  be  allowed 
four  months  to  repent  of  its  perversity.  If  by  the  ist 
of  November  the  London  Cabinet  had  not  cancelled 
the  system  of  maritime  outrage  which  was  its  selfish 
and  savage  way  of  dealing  with  the  enlightened 
Continental  system  and  Berlin  Decree,  the  islanders 
must  be  treated  as  the  common  enemies  of  the  human 
race.  The  reference  here  was  to  the  Orders  in 
Council  prohibiting  all  trade  between  English  subjects 
or  allies  and  any  ports  in  French  occupation.  These 
Orders  had  first  been  issued  by  the  Whig  Government 
of  Grenville  and  Grey,  in  the  January  of  1807.  They 
were  thus  in  force  when  the  Duke  of  Portland  and 
Canning  succeeded  to  power.  They  were  expedients 
of  what  has  been  called  the  "  tu  quoque "  school  of 
statesmanship,  and  retaliated  against  France  the 
perpetual  blockade  to  which  Napoleon  had  condemned 
the  British  Isles.  Napoleon's  diplomacy  of  systematic- 
ally embroiling  Russia  with  England  began  to  be  put 
into  execution  at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  The  Tilsit  compact  between  the  two 
emperors  was  but  the  last  in  a  series  of  transactions. 

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These  placed  the  Czar  at  the  disposal  of  the  French 
emperor  in  the  long-cherished  and  carefully  thought- 
out  plan  of  destroying  the  sea  power  of  England. 
Europe  as  a  whole  had  made  itself  the  French  con- 
queror's tool  in  this  design.  Denmark  and  Portugal 
alone  remained  outside  the  Continental  system.  If  both 
the  recalcitrant  states  would  not  declare  war  against 
England,  handing  over  their  fleets  to  France  as  Euro- 
pean emancipator,  they  must  be  threatened  with  imme- 
diate hostilities.  Such  was  the  plot  matured  by  the 
two  rulers  on  their  raft  in  the  Niemen.  The  general 
features  of  the  conspiracy  possessed  indeed  little  novelty 
for  Canning,  who  had  long  suspected  something  of  the 
sort  to  be  in  the  wind.  Where  Pitt  found  only  reason 
for  thinking,  Canning  was  in  a  position  for  knowing 
that  difficulties  of  transport  alone  prevented  Napoleon's 
descent  upon  Ireland,  as  a  base  for  operations  against 
Britain.  Once  let  the  French  emperor  obtain  the 
vessels  he  needed,  the  invasion  of  England  would 
come  as  surely  as  the  Channel  could  be  crossed. 

By  what  precise  means  or  on  what  exact  dates  the 
secret  articles  of  the  Tilsit  treaties  reached  the  Foreign 
Secretary  may  not  even  yet  be  certainly  known. 
After  the  lapse  of  just  a  hundred  years  since  the  Tilsit 
negotiations  were  held,  the  details  that  have  gradually 
come  to  light  concerning  them  suffice  for  a  narrative 
tolerably  circumstantial,  if  at  one  or  two  points  con- 
jectural of  the  episode.  Writing  on  22nd  July  to 
Brook- Taylor,  Garlike's  successor  as  our  envoy  at 
Copenhagen,  Canning  mentions  intelligence  having 
reached  him  "  yesterday  "  from  Tilsit  about  Bonaparte's 
designs.  By  whom  and  from  whom  were  the  tidings 
here  referred  to  conveyed  ? 

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The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

On  or  about  2ist  July,  there  called  at  the  Foreign 
Office  a  mysterious  stranger  desiring  to  see  the 
Secretary  of  State  on  a  confidential  matter  of  urgent 
importance.  This  visitor  was  almost  certainly  an 
English  spy  named  Mackenzie,  who  said  that,  con- 
cealed behind  a  curtain  on  the  raft,  he  had  caught 
occasional  glimpses  of  the  animated  and  cordial  manner 
of  the  two  emperors  to  each  other,  and  had  overheard 
clearly  all  their  conversation.  Mackenzie  has  been 
thought  by  some  to  be  a  myth.  The  Denmark 
documents  of  the  Foreign  Office  contain  reasons  for 
regarding  him  as  a  reality.  It  does  not,  of  course, 
necessarily  follow  that  Mackenzie's  tale  was  all  of  it 
first-hand.  Some  scraps  may,  as  the  eavesdropper 
said,  actually  have  reached  his  lurking-place.  The 
rumours,  of  which  at  the  time  the  air  was  full,  may 
easily  have  enabled  him  to  eke  them  out  and  to  give 
them  a  plausible  appearance.  But  in  well-informed 
quarters  at  the  time  the  agency  through  which  the 
Tilsit  secret  reached  the  Foreign  Office  was  believed 
to  be  that  of  Count  d'Antraigues,  an  ardent  French 
royalist  who  took  an  active  part  in  the  restoration  of 
Louis  XVIII.  Canning  himself  may  have  had  direct 
communications  from  the  regent  of  Portugal.  He  was 
also  in  the  habit  of  supplementing  letters  from 
ambassadors,  as  well  as  from  private  friends,  with  a 
very  careful  study  of  the  Paris  newspapers.  Canning, 
however,  spoke  of  his  informant  as  an  exalted  personage 
whose  name  it  was  impossible  for  him  to  reveal.  Was 
this  only  Canning's  full-dress  Foreign  Office  manner 
of  affecting  a  grand  indignation  at  the  suggestion  by 
some  of  his  opponents  that  the  man  behind  the  curtain, 
so  far  from  being  some  highly  placed,  curiously  com- 

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High  Politics  and   High   Finance 

municative  diplomatist,  would  turn  out  to  be  a  com- 
mon-place international  spy.  Or  could  Canning's 
informant  have  been  Talleyrand  ?  In  favour  of  this 
last  supposition,  so  long  ago  as  1797,  at  the  Lille  Con- 
ference with  Malmesbury,  Talleyrand  had  been  ready 
to  intrigue  with  England  against  Napoleon.  In  1807, 
Talleyrand  was  under  sentence  of  dismissal.  Though 
he  had  formerly  favoured  or  even  suggested  Bonaparte's 
Portuguese  and  Spanish  schemes,  moved  by  pique 
against  his  master,  he  may  now  have  been  ready  for  a  new 
trick.  Certainly  Napoleon  himself  suspected  Talleyrand. 
At  any  rate,  the  news  brought  by  the  enigmatic 
caller  at  the  Foreign  Office,  whether  Mackenzie  or 
another,  was  fully  and  exactly  verified  by  events. 
Canning's  memory  was  still  fresh  when  enough  of  the 
secret  articles  were  known  to  vindicate  his  action. 
The  final  justification  came  with  their  full  text,  not 
published  till  1877.*  Before  Canning's  time,  Denmark, 
it  must  be  remembered,  had  been  forcibly  admonished, 
by  Nelson's  bombardment  of  Copenhagen  in  1801,  of 
the  heavy  forfeit  to  be  exacted  by  England  for  future 
participation  in  the  Armed  Neutrality.  Yet  in  1806 
Canning  had  learned  from  Captain  Dunbar's  report 
about  the  preparations  going  forward  in  Danish  docks 
of  stores  and  ships.  This,  as  Denmark  did  not  deny, 
might  mean  war  with  England.  At  the  same  time  the 
Danish  Government  excited  further  suspicion  by  its 
acquiescence  in,  though  not  its  formal  adhesion  to,  the 
Continental  System ;  Denmark  also  had  denounced 
England's  violently  practical  answer  to  the  Berlin 
Decree.  However  rough  the  British  reprisal,  it  was 

*  These  details  are  most  clearly  and  instructively  brought  together  by 
Mr  H.  W.  V.  Temperley  in  his  Life  of  Canning,  p.  93. 

I99 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

gentle  in  comparison  with  the  original  provocation. 
As  will  be  seen  a  little  later,  both  the  Decree  and  the 
Orders  in  Council  were  mistakes,  recoiling  with  equal 
severity  upon  their  makers.  The  Napoleonic  edict 
from  the  Prussian  capital  had  been  accepted  as  mutely 
by  the  Danes  as  was  Napoleon's  later  threat  of  tak- 
ing for  an  enemy  any  neutral  that  allowed  the  infliction 
upon  her  shipping  of  the  outrages  threatened  by  the 
Orders  in  Council.  Canning's  predecessor  at  the 
Foreign  Office,  Howick,  had  first  remonstrated  with 
Rist,  the  Danish  representative  in  London,  on  the 
evident  partiality  of  the  Copenhagen  cabinet  to 
Napoleon.  About  the  same  time,  before  the  Tilsit 
meeting,  Canning  acquainted  the  Danish  court  through 
our  envoy,  Brook-Taylor,  that  our  engagements  to 
Sweden  and  the  protection  of  British  reinforcements 
might  bring  English  ships  into  Danish  waters. 
Denmark  therefore  had  for  some  time  given  Great 
Britain  much  reason  to  distrust  her  and  could  complain 
of  no  lack  of  warnings,  severe  or  gentle,  that  England 
was  not  prepared  to  stand  much  trifling  from  a  pro- 
fessedly friendly  Power.  Both  delicate  hints  and  stern 
monitions  were  fresh  in  the  Danish  mind  when 
Canning  heard,  whether  from  Mackenzie  the  spy  or 
from  another  quarter,  that  Bonaparte  had  publicly 
declared  Denmark's  adhesion  to  the  new  anti- British 
Maritime  League  to  be  not  less  certain  than  it  was 
essential.  Under  these  circumstances  the  indignant 
denial  by  the  Danish  Crown  Prince  of  any  intention  to 
make  common  cause  with  France  produced  no 
impression  upon  the  latest  English  envoy  to  Denmark, 
Jackson.  "Were  you,"  asked  George  III.,  when 
Jackson  recited  the  whole  incident,  "  upstairs  or  on 

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High  Politics  and   High   Finance 

the  ground-floor  at  the  time  of  your  telling  the  Danish 
prince  you  did  not  believe  him  ?  " 

"  On  the  ground  floor,  so  please  your  Majesty." 

"  That  was  well,"  rejoined  the  king,  "  for  your  sake, 
otherwise  had  he  been  of  my  way  of  thinking  he  would 
certainly  have  kicked  you  downstairs." 

What  followed  is  too  well  known  to  be  repeated  at 
any  length.  The  Danish  army  was  defeated  by  Sir 
Arthur  Wellesley  at  Roskilde ;  Copenhagen,  bom- 
barded by  land  and  sea,  surrendered  on  8th  September, 
the  ships  anchored  in  her  harbour.  On  28th  October 
the  British  and  Danish  fleets,  both  flying  the 
English  flag,  paid  a  friendly  visit  to  King  Gustavus  IV. 
of  Sweden,  the  most  loyal  and  dauntless  of  England's 
allies.  "  Bustle  and  glory  too,"  triumphantly  mur- 
mured the  whole  Downing  Street  staff,  after  the  pupil 
of  Pitt,  in  ''weathering  the  Northern  storm/'  had 
shown  himself  a  worthy  successor  of  the  master-pilot. 

Denmark  may  have  been,  as  she  protested,  true  to 
England,  but  appearances  were  against  her.  When 
Jackson  refused  to  be  reassured  by  the  Crown  Prince's 
fair  words,  he  still  had  in  his  ears  Canning's  warn- 
ing reminder  that,  so  far  back  as  July,  Napoleon  had 
told  Talleyrand  to  insist  on  the  closing  of  Danish  ports 
against  England.  "  However  fair  the  promises  for  the 
future,  we  cannot,"  had  been  Canning's  final  instruc- 
tions to  his  representative,  "  forget  that  in  the  near 
past,  as  we  already  know  from  the  Danish  Foreign 
Minister,  Bernstorff,  the  Crown  Prince  at  once  under- 
took not  only  to  shut  us  out  of  the  Baltic,  but  to 
place  himself  in  everything  at  Napoleon's  disposal." 
Canning,  moreover,  had  other  informants  in  this 

matter ;  first  Pierrepoint,  our  ambassador  to  Sweden, 

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The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

and  secondly  the  King  of  Sweden  himself.  The  latter,  in 
letters  to  our  Foreign  Office  and  to  George  III.,  begged 
there  might  be  no  delay  in  the  British  fleet's  going  to 
the  Baltic.  Canning's  diplomacy  and  his  consequent 
action  were  justified  by  the  result.  If  he  had  not 
fully  succeeded,  to  quote  his  own  words,  in  "  stunning 
Russia  into  her  senses/'  he  caused  the  Czar  to  pause, 
to  delay  for  some  months  his  adoption  of  the  Con- 
tinental system  and  his  declaration  of  war  against 
England.  The  practical  results  of  Canning's  Danish 
policy  were  that  the  landing  of  French  troops  in  Ire- 
land was  prevented,  and  the  chance  of  the  Irish 
rising  against  us  to  a  man  disappeared.  The  Baltic 
remained  open  ;  we  could  therefore  send  our  promised 
reinforcements  to  the  King  of  Sweden ;  we  could 
enable  the  Spanish  General  Romana  to  run  the 
French  gauntlet,  to  convey  10,000  troops  back  to 
Spain  and  train  them  there  for  afterwards  rising 
against  French  despotism.  The  precedents  for  the 
strong  measures  taken  were,  the  British  occupation  of 
Portuguese  property,  the  island  of  Madeira,  to  prevent 
its  being  seized  by  France  in  1801,  and,  as  security 
against  a  like  risk,  the  taking  of  Lisbon  by  the  Fox 
and  Grenville  Government  in  1806. 

The  vigour  which  marked  Canning's  first  period  at 
the  Foreign  Office  did  not  cease  when  the  echoes  of 
the  Copenhagen  cannonade  died  away.  The  accounts 
from  foreign  capitals  now  received  by  the  Secretary  of 
State  conspired  with  the  course  of  public  events  to 
increase  the  probability  of  an  effective  European 
concert  developing  itself  against  Bonaparte.  To  avoid 
whatever  might  mar  the  rising  harmony  became  there- 
fore a  paramount  object  of  Canning's  policy.  In  all 

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High  Politics  and  High  Finance 

this,  Canning  consistently  and  successfully  revived 
Pitt's  policy  of  non-intervention  in  European  affairs, 
except  for  the  necessary  protection  of  essentially  British 
interests.  The  first  of  those  interests,  for  the  moment, 
was  the  maintenance  of  our  sea-strength  unimpaired. 
On  nth  November  1807,  therefore,  new  stringency 
was  given  to  the  Orders  in  Council  issued  in  the 
preceding  January.  Our  representatives  abroad  were 
instructed  to  acquaint  foreign  governments  with  the 
proved  inadequacy  of  the  existing  measures.  Let 
them  (were  Canning's  new  orders)  understand  that  it 
is  not  enough  to  hold  all  ports  of  France  and  of  her 
allies  to  be  in  a  state  of  blockade.  Whoever  is  not 
for  us  must  be  considered  against  us.  It  is  not  enough 
for  a  country  to  practise  mere  neutrality  or  even  to 
make,  after  the  Danish  manner,  professions  of  friend- 
ship. The  test  must  be  the  reception  of  the  British 
flag.  Where  that  is  excluded,  we  have  to  deal  as 
with  an  open  enemy.  In  this  matter  Canning,  it  must 
be  remembered,  was  using  a  weapon  not  of  his  own 
forging  or  unreservedly  approved  by  him.  The  idea 
of  the  Orders  in  Council  seems  to  have  been  struck 
out  by  George  Rose,  Pitt's  Secretary  to  the  Treasury.* 
Canning  himself  lived  to  disapprove  of  them  and  to 
protest  against  their  continuance. 

The  next  act  in  the  diplomatic  drama  had,  mean- 
while, opened  in  Paris.  The  Portuguese  ambassador  to 
France  was  told  that  Napoleon's  mission  as  champion 
of  international  morality  compelled  him  to  insist  on  Por- 
tugal punishing  England  for  her  wanton  outrage  on 
Denmark,  by  a  declaration  of  war.  The  diplomatic 
situation  now  developed  had,  it  must  be  confessed,  a 

*  See  also  page  224. 
203 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

certain  drollery.  So  far  from  Great  Britain  protesting 
against  Portugal's  mute  sufferance  of  the  seizure  of  her 
subjects  and  shipping  by  Napoleon,  England  actually 
advised  her  to  save  herself  by  accepting  the  French  ulti- 
matum. "  By  all  means/'  in  effect  said  Canning  to  the 
Lisbon  Government,  "  make  war  against  us  as  the  Dic- 
tator of  Europe  desires  ;  only  do  your  best  to  avoid  the 
confiscation  of  English  property/'  Portugal  acted  on 
the  advice,  took  its  place  among  our  declared  enemies, 
but  spared  the  property  of  British  residents.  This  was 
not  enough  for  the  French  emperor,  who,  upon  his 
favourite  principle  that  war  ought  to  support  war, 
had  long  since  arranged  to  gratify  his  favourites  by  the 
plunder  of  British  possessions  in  the  Peninsula.  While 
in  the  very  act  of  appropriating  the  valuables  belong- 
ing to  the  prosperous  merchants  of  Frankfort,  and  the 
masterpieces  of  Italian  art  at  Rome,  Bonaparte  had 
cherished  the  design  of  looting  the  traders  of  all 
nations,  especially  of  England,  in  Portugal  and  Spain. 
On  1 7th  October  1807,  tne  French  invasion,  and  with 
it  the  panic  at  the  Lisbon  court,  began.  This  was  part 
of  the  policy  arranged  at  Tilsit,  and  some  time  before 
then  discussed  between  Napoleon  and  his  Foreign 
Minister.  The  peace  negotiations  of  1806,  instituted 
by  Fox,  had  been  conducted  by  Yarmouth,  Lauder- 
dale  and  Rosslyn.  So  far  back  as  then  Talleyrand 
made  no  mystery  of  the  French  intention  to  absorb 
the  whole  Peninsula.  More  than  that,  the  ac- 
counts of  the  negotiations  furnish  the  earliest 
circumstantial  evidence  to  show  that,  in  1806 
Talleyrand  keenly  supported  the  peninsular  pro- 
jects.* Then  at  least  there  could  have  been  no 

*  O'Meara,  ii.  330 ;  Thibaudeau,  vi.  296. 
204 


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High   Politics  and  High   Finance 

reason  for  imputing  to  Talleyrand  dissent  from  or  even 
indifference  to  Napoleon's  Iberian  schemes.  The  most 
cosmopolitan  of  London  drawing-rooms  in  Canning's 
time  was  that  of  Miss  Lydia  White,  regularly  visited 
by  Canning,  Castlereagh,  Sir  James  Mackintosh,  and 
an  emporium  of  diplomatic  gossip.  "If,"  said  to  the 
present  writer  the  late  Mr  Alfred  Montgomery,  "we 
knew  the  secrets  of  that  house,  we  might  find  that  as 
a  visitor  there  Canning  knew  enough  when  as  yet 
Talleyrand  could  not  have  told  him  a  word  about 
Tilsit. "  Before  the  French  Revolution  had  kindled 
the  European  conflagration,  England,  France,  Portugal 
and  Spain  had  become,  by  the  Treaty  of  Paris  in 
1763,  nominal  allies.  After  Tilsit,  Russian  diplomacy 
in  the  person  of  the  Czar's  ambassador  at  Madrid, 
Baron  Strogonoff,  keenly  alive  to  the  precarious 
nature  of  any  agreement  with  France,  so  worked  upon 
the  Spanish  Government  as  to  make  it  meditate 
hostilities  against  France  in  the  Pyrenees.  The  plan 
was  to  unite  England,  Russia  and  Spain  in  maintain- 
ing the  liberties  of  that  very  peninsula  against  which 
the  Tilsit  peace  had  given  Napoleon  a  free  hand. 
Every  detail  of  this  new  arrangement  became  known 
to  Napoleon  on  the  day  of  his  victory  at  Jena.  Three 
years  after  the  Anglo- Russian  rupture  completed  at 
Tilsit,  the  Czar  himself,  in  the  December  of  1810, 
withdrew  from  Napoleon's  commercial  system,  and  so  by 
his  own  act  cancelled  the  conspiracy  to  which  he  had 
with  the  French  emperor  been  a  party  at  the  riverain 
frontier  of  his  empire  and  of  the  Prussian  monarchy, 
his  secession  was  followed  by  a  Russian  proposal  to 
England  for  action  on  behalf  of  absolutism  in  Spain. 

i 
205 


CHAPTER  IX 

FROM  TILSIT  TO  CHAUMONT 

Napoleon  in  the  Peninsula — The  Treaty  of  Fontainebleau — Can- 
ning's views  on  trade — Mallet-du-Pan — The  Spanish  rising  against 
the  French — English  and  Spanish  diplomatists — Foreign  policy 
first  popularised  by  Canning — British  subsidies  sent  to  Spain — 
John  Hookham  Frere  at  Madrid — The  necessity  for  British 
troops  in  Spain — Strained  relations  between  Canning  and 
Castlereagh — Their  quarrel  and  resignation — Lord  Bathurst — 
Lord  Wellesley — George  Hammond — The  formation  of  Ix^rd 
Liverpool's  cabinet — Napoleon's  successes — The  Second 
American  War — Friendly  feeling  between  France  and  America 
— The  repeal  of  the  Orders  in  Council — The  Treaty  of  Ghent 
— The  attitudes  of  the  various  European  rulers  towards 
Napoleon,  1813-14 — Metternich  and  his  diplomacy — Austria  as 
European  mediator — Napoleon's  last  intrigues — The  Congress 
of  Chatillon — Court  Pozzo  di  Borgo — Napoleon  deserted  by 
Austria — The  Treaty  of  Chaumont — The  abdication  of  Napoleon 
and  the  Bourbon  restoration. 

THE  excitement  caused  by  the  Tilsit  revelations 
subsided,  the  echoes  of  Canning's  bombardment 
of  Copenhagen  died  away.  The  European  states 
began  to  group  themselves  round  France  in  hostility 
to  England.  Russia  indeed,  by  refusing  from  regard 
to  the  interests  of  her  land-owners  strictly  to  enforce 
the  suspension  of  trade  with  Great  Britain,  stood  aloof 
from  Napoleon ;  she  thus  began  to  provoke  those 
suicidal  reprisals  from  the  French  dictator  which  were 
to  lure  him  to  his  ruin  at  Moscow.  On  the  other  hand 
Denmark  now  became  openly  hostile  to  us.  Even 

Sweden,  on  7th  September  1807,  by  the  capitulation  of 

206 


From  Tilsit  to  Chaumont 

Rugen,  enabled  Napoleon  to  make  himself  master  of 
Northern  Germany.  Portugal  alone  still  refused  to 
acknowledge  the  Berlin  Decree.  Though  that  country 
had  at  our  instance  formally  accepted  Bonaparte's  ulti- 
matum and  made  a  declaration  of  war  against  us,  her 
regent's  refusal  to  confiscate  English  property  had 
caused  Napoleon  to  invade  her  territory.  At  Tilsit, 
we  know,  the  Czar  had  been  authorised  by  Bonaparte 
to  absorb  Finland,  which  from  the  thirteenth  century 
had  belonged  to  Sweden,  and  to  annex  the  Danubian 
provinces  that  were  part  of  European  Turkey.  In 
return  he  was  to  connive  at  Napoleon's  bestowing  on 
members  of  his  own  family  the  Braganza  monarchy  in 
Portugal  and  the  Bourbon  crown  in  Spain.  The 
French  attempt  to  carry  these  designs  into  execution 
began  in  the  second  year  (1808)  of  Canning's  initial 
term  at  the  Foreign  Office.  In  that  year  England  had 
for  its  representative  in  Portugal  Percy  Strangford, 
Viscount  Clinton,  who  accompanied  the  Portuguese 
court  to  Brazil  on  its  flight  there  from  the  French 
invader.  The  Portuguese  ambassadors  to  the  British 
capital  have  often  been  equally  in  favour  at  the  palace 
and  in  society.  From  1 808  to  1 8 1 1  the  Portuguese 
envoy  in  London  was  Chevalier  de  Souza  Couttinho, 
afterwards  Conde  de  Funchal,  notable  alike  for  his 
skill  in  politics  and  success  in  society.  The  treaty 
signed  by  Canning  and  him,  2nd  October  1807,  formed 
the  basis  of  Anglo- Portuguese  relations  throughout  this 
period.  The  clauses  of  mutual  alliance  and  defence 
were  accompanied  by  an  arrangement  for  the  King  of 
Portugal's  departure  for  Brazil.  That  was  immediately 
carried  out,  and  across  the  Atlantic  the  king  remained 

till  his  realm  at  home  had  been  cleared  of  the  enemy. 

207 


,     The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

For  some  little  time  before  his  actual  invasion  of  the 
country  in  1808,  Spain  had  engaged  the  diplomatic  and 
military  attention  of  the  French  emperor.  The  retro- 
spect of  the  relation  into  which  Napoleon  and  Spain 
had  so  far  been  brought  contained  little  that  can  have 
seemed  entirely  satisfactory  to  either.  For  what  were 
the  fortunes  that  had  attended  the  connection  between 
the  two  ?  Spain  had  no  sooner  joined  the  first  Coalition 
than  French  armies  crossed  the  Pyrenees  ;  three  years 
later  she  entered  the  service  of  France,  only  to  find 
her  battleships  beaten  at  St  Vincent.  To  suit  his 
convenience  at  the  Amiens  negotiations,  Napoleon 
surrendered  the  Spanish  West  Indian  colony  Trinidad 
to  England ;  on  the  renewal  of  the  war  he  forced 
Spain  into  hostilities  with  England,  and  so  brought 
upon  her  the  humiliation  of  Trafalgar.  In  the  years 
that  followed,  Napoleon  was  systematically  misled  by 
his  agents  as  to  the  state  of  national  feeling  and 
political  movement  in  the  Peninsula.  Canning,  on  the 
other  hand,  thanks  partly  to  the  excellent  working 
order  into  which  every  division  of  his  department  had 
been  brought,  found  himself  better  informed  than  any 
Foreign  Minister  yet  had  been  as  to  political  movements 
and  popular  feeling  abroad.  In  particular  he  knew 
that,  so  far  from  being  brought,  as  Napoleon  believed, 
by  national  discontent  to  the  verge  of  a  revolution, 
Spain  remained  loyal  to  her  established  dynasty,  and 
would  wage  war  to  the  knife  against  the  alien  who  tried 
to  supplant  it. 

On  the  27th  of  October  1807,  Napoleon  followed 
up  the  Tilsit  plot  with  what  his  satellites  applauded 
as  a  political  master-stroke.  This  was  the  Treaty 

of  Fontainebleau  between  France  and  Spain  for  the 

208 


From  Tilsit  to  Chaumont 

partition  of  Portugal.  The  British  Foreign  Office  under 
Canning  now  knew  enough  of  Napoleon's  international 
methods  to  feel  sure  that  his  compact  with  the  Spanish 
Government  was  but  a  blind.  The  expressions  of 
Talleyrand  and  others  in  his  confidence,  some  years 
before,  about  Spain  were  now  recalled.  Bursting  with 
self-importance  and  with  odds  and  ends  of  news  picked 
up  by  him  in  strange  European  corners,  a  native  of 
Napoleon's  own  Corsica,  Pozzo  di  Borgo,  of  whom 
more  will  be  said  later,  contrived  at  this  time  frequently 
to  be  closeted  with  Canning,  as  before  he  had  been 
with  Pitt.  "  It  is  only,"  exclaimed  this  foreign  visitor, 
"a  trap  for  catching  the  Spanish  court.  Directly 
Bonaparte  has  put  the  people  at  Madrid  off  their  guard, 
he  will  make  a  single  meal,  not  merely  of  Portugal, 
but  of  Spain  too.  Hence  all  this  apparent  regard  for 
the  national  pride,  with  the  promises  of  restoring  to 
the  Bourbon  crown  the  jewels  taken  away  from  it  by 
England  in  the  Atlantic."  Such  indeed,  before  the 
nineteenth  century  had  completed  its  first  decade,  was 
to  prove  the  case.  Canning  did  not  become  member 
for  Liverpool  till  1812.  It  was,  however,  during  his 
earliest  term  of  office  that  he  more  specially  began  to 
insist  to  his  Parliamentary  followers,  on  popular  plat- 
forms as  well  as  in  official  despatches,  on  commerce  and 
trade  as  the  handmaids,  if  not  the  foundations,  of 
empire.  War  had  given  a  stimulus  to  British  manufac- 
ture of  all  kinds,  more  particularly  to  the  cotton  goods 
of  Manchester  and  the  woollens  of  Bradford.  The 
Continental  System  had  prevented  the  actual  importa- 
tion of  these  British  products  into  the  countries  most 
needing  them,  and  had  so  caused  distress  less  to 
England  than  to  her  neighbours.  On  slavery  and  its 
o  209 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

abolition  Canning's  views,  when  the  occasion  for 
expressing  them  came,  proved  to  be  not  unlike  those 
of  Burke  ;  the  negro  he  described  as  a  being  with  the 
form  of  a  man  and  the  intellect  of  a  child.  As  regards 
trade  he  was  liberal  enough  to  make  an  opening  to- 
wards the  establishment  of  free  commercial  exchange. 
His  great  principle  was  that  trade  with  this  country 
must  in  the  long  run  prove  more  necessary  to  foreign 
nations  than  to  England.  "  Our  own  colonies," 
Canning  said  to  Souza,  "  supply  us  with  ample  means 
of  self-support."  Canning's  conviction  that  Napoleon's 
difficulties  in  Spain  were  only  beginning  with  his  success 
in  duping  the  Spanish  court  was  justified  by  the  national 
incidents  immediately  following  the  French  invasion. 

At  this  point  we  are  again  reminded  that  during 
the  earlier  years  of  the  nineteenth  century  were  busily 
at  work  certain  diplomatic  agencies  independent  of 
and  separate  from  any  Foreign  Office  machinery.  In 
France,  after  his  deposition  and  during  his  imprison- 
ment, Louis  XVI.  conducted  an  entire  series  of 
negotiations  between  himself,  the  French  royalists  and 
foreign  Powers  friendly  to  the  monarchy,  through  the 
Due  de  Breteuil,  his  former  minister,  and  through 
Mallet-du-Pan.  This  last  was  the  distinguished 
French  publicist  who  associated  himself  with  Malouet, 
Mirabeau  and  others,  in  the  cause  of  moderation  during 
that  period  of  frenzy  when  to  advocate  political  sobriety 
was  denounced  as  treason  to  the  rights  of  man.  His 
property  had  been  confiscated,  his  library  burned  by 
the  Jacobins.  With  broken  health  and  spirits,  after 
some  months  of  wandering,  he  found  himself  in 
England  a  penniless  exile  ;  nevertheless  he  contrived 

to  start  in  London  an  international  newspaper  written 

210 


From  Tilsit  to  Chaumont 

in  French,  Le  Mercure  Britannique,  on  the  plan  of 
the  extinct  Mercure  de  France.  Pitt,  during  his  first 
premiership,  recognised  the  refugee's  abilities  by 
employing  him  on  several  little  Foreign  Office 
missions ;  he  eventually  rewarded  his  services  by 
giving  his  widow  a  pension  of  ^300  a  year  and  his  son 
an  appointment  in  the  Audit  Office.  In  due  time  this 
son  succeeded  to  his  father's  official  career,  and  was  him- 
self followed  by  a  son  of  his  own  who,  beginning  life  in 
the  Board  of  Trade  and  as  private  secretary  to  Lord 
Taunton,  helped  Cobden  in  his  French  commercial 
treaty  and  became  afterwards  Sir  Louis  Malet, 
Permanent  Under- Secretary  at  the  India  Office.  The 
exact  precedent  for  the  international  enterprise  of 
Spanish  patriotism  in  1808,  had  been  in  1794  the 
mission  of  Count  Alfred  de  Puisaye,  the  leader  of  the 
royalist  rising  against  the  Republic  in  la  Vendee ;  De 
Puisaye's  adventures,  before  he  succeeded  in  escaping 
to  England,  recall  the  wanderings  and  escapes  of  the 
Young  Pretender  in  the  Western  Highlands.  De 
Puisaye  himself,  though  kindly  received  by  Pitt,  only 
succeeded  in  promoting  the  disastrous  Ouiberon  expe- 
dition. 

"It  was,"  at  a  later  date  said  Napoleon,  "that 
fatal  peninsular  adventure  which  ruined  me.1'  Before 
that,  however,  when  one  of  those  about  him  pointed 
out  the  risk  of  invading  Spain,  Bonaparte's  words  had 
been,  "  Believe  me,  countries  governed  by  monks  are 
not  hard  to  conquer."  The  sneer  sank  deeply  into  the 
ecclesiastical  mind  of  the  threatened  country.  It  trans- 
formed Churchmen  into  diplomatists  and  soldiers.  It 
was  a  Franciscan  friar,  Jean  Rico,  who,  in  Valencia,  first 

planned  and  led  the  national  rising  against  the  French. 

211 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

He  was  followed  by  Balthazar  Calvo,  a  canon  of 
Madrid.  The  Spanish  multitude  instinctively  dis- 
trusted its  aristocracy.  In  a  democratic  and  largely  a 
peasant  priesthood,  the  peninsular  patriots  of  the 
cottage  and  of  the  pavement  found  natural  leaders 
whom  they  were  prepared  to  follow  with  the  same 
fidelity  that  fifteen  years  earlier  had  been  displayed 
by  the  Paris  mob  towards  Robespierre  and  Collot 
d'Herbois.  The  rising  against  the  French  at  once 
became  popular  and  as  sanguinary  as  might  have 
been  expected  in  an  age  when  the  rabble  in  Southern 
Europe  was  excited  and  demoralised  by  bloodshed 
soaking  the  whole  continent.  Conspicuous  among  the 
official  representatives  of  Spain  in  London  at  this 
period  were  Admiral  Juan  Ruiz  de  Apodaca,  the  Duke 
of  Infantado,  the  Duke  of  Montellano,  the  Duke  of 
San  Carlos,  and,  as  chargt  d'affaires  till  his  arrival, 
the  Chevalier  Campuzano.  To-day  these  may  be 
names  only,  but  though  one  or  two  of  the  number 
came  a  little  after  that  period,  the  diplomatists  now 
indicated,  between  1808  and  1812,  were  in  daily 
communication  with  the  English  Foreign  Office,  both 
under  Canning  and  Castlereagh.  On  the  other  hand 
the  men  despatched  during  these  critical  years  from 
Downing  Street  to  Madrid  were  the  pick  of  the  service. 
John  Hookham  Frere,  as  we  already  know,  not  only 
possessed  Canning's  intimacy,  but  had  not  a  little  of 
the  literary  brilliance  and  versatility  with  which  the 
diplomacy  of  the  time  sparkled.  Richard  Wellesley,  at 
a  later  date  to  become  successively  Lord  Cowley, 
the  Marquis  Wellesley,  and  head  of  the  Foreign  Office 
in  1 808,  succeeded  Frere  at  the  Madrid  embassy  ;  after 

a  short  interval  he  was  himself  followed  at  Madrid  by 

212 


From  Tilsit  to  Chaumont 

Charles  Richard  Vaughan.  All  these  representatives 
of  Great  Britain  felt  a  strong  personal  interest  in  the 
struggle  for  national  existence  forced  upon  the  country 
to  which  they  were  accredited.  Some  of  them  may, 
like  Frere,  have  expected  too  much  from  the  hurriedly 
raised  Spanish  levies.  Here  they  might  perhaps  have 
profited  more  than  they  did  from  the  sound  and  shrewd 
counsel  of  certain  among  the  English  settlers  in  the 
country.  Chief  among  these  was  a  British  merchant  at 
Cadiz,  named  Strange,  who,  before  being  assassinated 
in  his  efforts  to  calm  an  insurrectionary  mob,  had 
warned  the  English  ambassador  against  trusting  too 
implicitly  the  military  organisation  or  professions  of 
the  Spanish  leaders.  The  negotiations  conducted  by 
our  Madrid  embassy  had  great  results.  Encouraged 
by  the  British  promise  of  arms,  help  and  the  necessary 
supplies,  Spain  entered  into  a  treaty  with  England  not  to 
conclude  a  separate  peace  with  Napoleon.  At  the  same 
time  Sir  Arthur  Wellesley  at  the  head  of  the  British 
reinforcements,  arrived  to  take  the  chief  command. 

By  associating  it  with  the  championship  of  a  people 
rising  against  an  invading  despot,  the  Foreign  Secre- 
tary attracted  the  enthusiastic  interest  of  the  country  to 
his  diplomacy.  To  the  British  masses  foreign  policy 
till  now  had  seemed  an  affair  of  experts  chiefly  in  the 
House  of  Lords.  The  invasion  of  Spain  enabled  Can- 
ning to  bring  down  international  statesmanship  to  the 
level  of  popular  comprehension,  much  after  the  manner 
that  Socrates  had  been  said  to  cause  philosophy  to 
descend  from  the  gods  to  men.  Whatever  the  mistakes 
due  to  his  impatience  and  irritability,  Canning  as  Foreign 
Minister  lifted  his  department  above  the  level  of  party. 
British  ambassadors  began  to  be  popularly  regarded, 

213 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

not  in  their  former  light  as  the  agents  of  court  or  of 
cabinet,  but  as  trustees  of  the  national  honour  and 
agents  in  executing  the  national  will.  As  Canning's 
political  opponent  Sheridan  put  it,  all  factions  must 
unite  to  help  a  people  animated,  like  the  Spanish,  with 
one  spirit  against  Bonaparte.  It  was,  he  said,  the 
kind  of  chance  in  vain  longed  for  by  Fox.  Therefore, 
from  all  Foxites,  Canning  must  receive  a  support  as 
cordial  as  if  the  man  whom  they  most  loved  were 
restored  to  life.  To  the  Tory  Foreign  Minister, 
Canning,  had  indeed  come  the  opportunity,  denied  to 
the  democratic  Fox,  of  popularising  the  technicalities 
of  his  portfolio.  As  he  himself  put  it,  in  making 
Spain  the  theatre  of  war  the  common  tyrant  of  man- 
kind had  offered  for  a  battlefield  a  sea-girt  and 
mountainous  region  where  the  numerical  inferiority  of 
the  British  armies  will  expose  them  to  less  disadvantage 
than  in  any  other  theatre  of  European  warfare.  Till 
now  no  Foreign  Minister  had  been  sure  that  his  opera- 
tions might  not  be  hampered  by  the  indifference  of  his 
official  staff,  or  his  policy  at  some  critical  point  over- 
ruled by  some  ministerial  colleague.  Thus  when  Fox 
on  his  third  term,  after  a  month's  interval  of  Lord 
Mulgrave,  followed  the  Earl  of  Harrowby,  he  had  the 
greatest  difficulty  with  the  permanent  members  of  his 
staff,  attached  as  these  were  to  the  Tory  tradition  of 
the  Duke  of  Leeds.  The  Duke  of  Leeds  himself,  in 
Pitt's  Government,  and  the  Prime  Minister  worked 
harmoniously  together  only  on  the  principle  of  the  one 
never  trusting  the  other  out  of  his  sight.  When,  with 
Pitt  still  at  the  Treasury,  Grenville  went  to  the  Foreign 
Office,  the  Secretary  of  State  was  incessantly  com- 
plaining, with  or  without  cause,  that  even  if  despatches 

214 


From  Tilsit  to  Chaumont 

for  his  department  were  not  actually  intercepted, 
Bland  Burges  or  one  of  the  other  Under-Secretaries, 
who  had  now  become  institutions,  contrived  to  curry 
favour  with  the  Prime  Minister  by  acquainting  him 
with  their  contents  before  the  papers  had  been  fully 
mastered  by  the  Foreign  Minister  himself.  Once 
Canning  was  established  in  Downing  Street,  inter- 
official  jealousies  and  suspicions  began  to  be  unknown. 
The  Secretary  of  State's  position  resembled  that  of  a 
later  Foreign  Minister,  Palmerston,  at  the  height  of  his 
power ;  he  had  become  not  merely  the  chief  of  the 
department  and  the  framer  of  a  policy,  but  the  personi- 
fication of  the  popular  mood  and  the  national  purpose. 

Canning's  diplomacy  proved  universally  intelligible 
and  had  an  inspiring  influence  on  every  section  of  the 
British  people.  It  not  only  appealed  to  the  deepest 
sentiments  of  the  race ;  it  was  immediately  accom- 
panied by  visible  and  practical  steps  for  the  succour 
of  a  now  friendly  people  struggling  to  be  free.  The 
man  who  was  the  life  and  soul  of  the  administration 
to  which  he  belonged  had,  for  the  relief  of  Napoleon's 
latest  victims,  opened  a  subscription  list  which  every- 
one signed.  From  the  beginning  of  June  1808  to 
Canning's  resignation  in  1809,  the  money  subsidies 
sent  by  Great  Britain  amounted  to  ,£3,100,000.  The 
cash  was  accompanied  by  every  variety  of  military 
stores  and  materials,  as  well  as  articles  of  dress.  In 
addition  to  the  state  supplies,  purses  for  the  Spanish 
patriots  were  started  in  all  centres  of  business  or 
pleasure  throughout  the  United  Kingdom. 

Canning,  by  sheer  hard  work  and  tact  combined, 
induced  the  English  representatives  of  the  Spanish 

Government,  whom  he  saw  almost  daily,  to  use  their 

215 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

influence  for  overcoming  mutual  jealousies  among  the 
Juntas  that  now  governed  Spain  ;  at  the  same  time  he 
instructed  his  own  agents  in  Spain  to  beware  of  wound- 
ing the  national  pride  of  a  susceptible  race.  The 
answer  of  the  English  people  to  the  stimulating  appeal 
of  Canning's  statesmanship  was  promptly  rewarded  by 
the  defeat  which  (iQth  July  1808)  the  Spanish  com- 
mander Reding  inflicted  on  the  French  general, 
Dupont,  at  Baylen.  Then  first  the  English  people 
were  satisfied  that  the  enterprise  to  which  their 
minister  had  committed  them  was  practicable. 

The  British  ambassador  to  Madrid  at  this  time  was 
Canning's  old  personal  friend,  John  Hookham  Frere  ; 
he  had  received  the  appointment  partly  in  recognition 
of  his  having  secured  the  safe  convoy  to  Spain  of 
10,000  Spanish  troops,  pressed  by  Napoleon  into  French 
service,  from  Denmark,  under  the  command  of  Romana. 
The  Foreign  Secretary  had  a  generous  belief  in  the 
military  vigour  of  the  Spanish  resistance  to  Napoleon. 
Frere  shared  this  faith  and  practically  retained  it  after 
he  ought  to  have  been  undeceived  by  experience.  On 
the  other  hand  Castlereagh,  the  War  Minister  in  the 
Portland  Government,  though  without  anything  of 
Canning's  genius,  was  not  his  inferior  in  administra- 
tive ability,  had  no  sympathy  with  his  optimism  and 
resented  his  tendency  to  interfere  in  matters  outside  his 
own  department. 

On  loth  December  1808,  Frere  received  instruc- 
tions from  Canning,  urging  stronger  and  prompter 
military  action.  There  seemed  a  danger  of  the  opera- 
tions in  the  Peninsula  coming,  in  1 809,  to  an  ineffectual 
close.  Overbearing  some  of  his  Cabinet  colleagues,  the 

masterful  Foreign  Secretary  concluded  a  treaty  with  the 

216 


From  Tilsit  to  Chaumont 

provisional  Government  of  Spain  ;  this  pledged  both 
Spain  and  England  to  abstain  from  making  a  separate 
peace. 

At  last  Frere  perceived  as  clearly  as,  with  some 
reluctance,  did  Canning  himself,  that,  whatever  the 
native  courage  and  potential  efficiency  of  the  Por- 
tuguese or  Spanish  troops,  British  training,  com- 
mand and  discipline  were  necessary  to  render  them 
trustworthy.  Here  the  English  War  Minister  would 
generally  have  agreed  with  the  Foreign  Minister  and 
his  representative  at  Madrid.  Canning  and  Castle- 
reagh  differed  in  their  ideas  of  the  exact  capacity  in 
which  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  then  Sir  Arthur 
Wellesley,  landed  at  Lisbon  in  1808.  It  was  with  the 
entire  approval  of  both  that  he  became  next  year 
Commander-in-chief.  Meanwhile  Frere  was  occupied 
with  the  critical  task  of  manipulating  the  morbidly  acute 
susceptibilities  of  the  Spanish  Government  and  people 
in  such  a  way  as  to  overcome  their  objection  to  Spanish 
fortresses  being  garrisoned  by  English  soldiers. 

While  thus  engaged,  Frere  heard  at  his  embassy 
of  a  private  emissary  from  Castlereagh  having  reached 
Spain  to  arrange  for  the  landing  of  an  English  con- 
tingent at  Cadiz,  without  this  purpose  being  officially 
communicated  to  the  Foreign  Minister  at  home,  or  to 
his  representative  at  the  Spanish  capital.  The 
relations  between  the  Ministers  for  War  and  for 
Foreign  Affairs  were  embittered  by  the  incident  just 
recounted  ;  they  were  strained  beyond  endurance  by 
the  Walcheren  expedition,  whose  failure  was  attributed 
to  the  War  Office  slackness  in  postponing  it  from  the 
early  spring  to  the  late  summer.  Incompatibility  of 

personal  character  and  political  temper  was,  however, 

217 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

enough  to  explain  the  rupture  which  had  from  the 
first  been  inevitable.  The  two  men  indeed  represented 
respectively  not  only  two  schools  of  political  thought, 
but  two  mutually  opposed  social  dispensations.  The 
contrast  in  their  personal  appearance  was  only  the 
outward  and  visible  sign  of  the  deeper  differences 
dividing  them  in  their  attitude  towards  affairs  and 
upon  tendencies  at  home  and  abroad.  As  they  sat 
not  far  from  each  other  in  the  House  of  Commons  on 
the  same  Treasury  bench,  Castlereagh,  with  a  certain 
magnificent  air,  throwing  back  his  blue  coat  the 
better  to  show  his  broad  chest  and  white  waistcoat, 
thrilled  the  assembly  with  proud  admiration  for  its 
patrician  leader.  Canning,  on  the  other  hand, 
imitated  his  master  Pitt  in  wearing  his  coat  tightly 
buttoned  up  to  his  neck-cloth,  while,  folding  his  arms, 
he  clothed  his  finely  cut  features  with  an  expression, 
half-humorous,  half-scornful,  such  as  became  the  in- 
tellectual ruler  of  the  Chamber.  The  House,  if  it  feared 
Canning's  rhymed  epigrams,  was  put  at  its  ease  by 
his  lucid  rhetoric,  and  particularly  admired  the  skill 
with  which,  like  Brougham,  he  could  dovetail  into  an 
elaborately  prepared  context  passages  freshly  sug- 
gested by  the  arguments  or  incidents  of  debate. 

The  Portland  Cabinet  had  no  sooner  got  to  work 
than  the  world  knew  there  was  not  room  in  it  both  for 
Canning  and  Castlereagh.  The  Foreign  Secretary 
took  little  trouble  to  conceal  his  conviction  that  either 
he  or  the  War  Minister  must  go.  The  wonder  is  not 
that,  according  to  the  custom  of  the  time,  the  two 
men  brought  their  quarrel  to  a  crisis  in  a  duel,  but  that 
the  precedent  of  the  hostile  meeting  between  Pitt  and 

Tierney  sixteen  years  earlier  had  not  been  followed  long 

218 


From  Tilsit  to  Chaumont 

before.  The  traditional  accounts  of  the  Canning  and 
Castlereagh  encounter  are  confused  and  contradictory  ; 
so  minutely  careful  an  authority  as  Sir  Archibald 
Alison,  rebutting  the  charge  of  the  two  principals  in 
the  affair  having  caused  a  Cabinet  scandal,  declares 
that  when  they  fought  both  had  ceased  to  be 
ministers.  May  not  the  truth  be  that  both  had 
placed  their  resignations  in  Portland's  hands,  but  that 
the  king's  pleasure  on  them  had  not  been  taken  ? 

The  next  resignation,  that  of  the  Prime  Minister, 
the  Duke  of  Portland  himself  (he  died  a  few  weeks 
afterwards),  made  Spencer  Perceval  premier  and 
provided  a  famous  Foreign  Secretary  of  a  later  day, 
Lord  Palmerston,  with  an  opening  for  his  great 
career.  Canning  was  immediately  followed  at  the 
Foreign  Office  by  the  third  Earl  Bathurst.  Bathurst 
had  been  made  Master  of  the  Mint  by  Pitt,  had 
retained  that  post  under  Addington,  and  had  been  the 
Duke  of  Portland's  President  of  the  Board  of  Trade. 
With  a  happy  knack  of  making  himself  useful  in  any 
position  at  the  shortest  notice,  he  was  always  in 
readiness  for  temporary  employment,  as  now,  in  the 
capacity  of  stop-gap  and  warming-pan.  One  of  his 
diplomatic  missions  had  for  its  object  to  encourage 
the  Tyrolese  in  the  rising  against  Napoleon.  Perceval 
was  already  in  communication  with  Frere's  successor 
in  our  Madrid  embassy,  Lord  Wellesley,  the  elder 
brother  of  Sir  Arthur  who  was  leading  our  army  to 
victory.  In  rather  less  than  two  months  Wellesley 
had  sufficiently  wound  up  his  business  as  British 
representative  at  the  court  of  Madrid  to  return  to 
England  and  to  become  at  the  Foreign  Office  the 

colleague  of  a  minister  quite  as  antipathetic  to  himself 

219 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

as  Castlereagh  had  been  to  Canning.  It  was  in  1818 
that  Brougham  examined  Goodall,  the  headmaster  of 
Eton,  before  the  Education  Committee  of  the  House 
of  Commons  as  to  an  alleged  injustice  done  to  Person, 
when  an  Eton  boy,  in  not  selecting  him  for  King's, 
Cambridge.  In  the  course  of  his  reply  Goodall, 
while  admitting  Person's  attainments,  denied  that  he 
was  near  being  the  best  Greek  scholar  in  the  school. 
Lord  Wellesley,  he  added,  was  altogether  his  superior. 
This  accomplished  Hellenist,  after  having  been  Lord 
of  the  Treasury,  received  his  official  training  as 
Governor-General  of  India  ;  he  more  than  maintained 
the  tradition  of  scholarship  with  which  Canning  had 
first  associated  the  Foreign  Office.  The  international 
ideas  to  which  as  Secretary  of  State  he  gave  effect 
may  be  inferred  from  his  fidelity  to  Pitt's  views  about 
England's  duties  towards  Jacobinism,  and  from  a 
speech  of  his  own  still  classical,  made  in  1794,  de- 
nouncing the  law  of  Nature  first  promulgated  by 
Danton,  and  ordaining  that  the  Alps,  the  Pyrenees, 
the  ocean  and  the  Rhine  should  be  the  only  boundaries 
to  the  French  dominions.  During  one  period  of  his 
life  Lord  Wellesley  so  closely  resembled  his  brother 
the  Duke  of  Wellington,  that  they  were  constantly 
mistaken  for  each  other.  The  most  striking  features 
of  both  were  the  eyes,  blue  in  colour,  very  round 
and  very  large,  and  in  a  less  degree  the  more  famous 
hook-nose ;  the  nose  was  done  justice  to  by  D'Orsay 
in  his  speaking  likeness  of  the  Duke  ;  the  only  picture 
portraying  the  Wellesley  eyes  is  a  drawing  by  Goya. 
By  the  time  Lord  Wellesley  entered  the  department 
it  had  been  put  into  such  first-rate  working  order  by  a 
series  of  Under-Secretaries,  that  its  business  went 

220 


From  Tilsit  to  Chaumont 

almost  automatically.  Among  those  organising 
officials,  the  most  active  had  been  the  George  Ham- 
mond already  mentioned  in  these  pages.  Hammond, 
after  several  foreign  missions  elsewhere,  had  in  1791 
gone  as  the  first  representative  of  the  English  Govern- 
ment to  the  United  States ;  here  he  was  warmly 
welcomed  by  Jefferson  as  the  pioneer  of  happier  relations 
with  the  old  country.  Hammond  only  retired  about 
the  time  of  Wellesley's  establishment  in  Downing 
Street.  Wellesley's  connection  with  Hammond's 
earliest  patron,  Pitt,  was  enough  to  recommend  the 
former  Under- Secretary  to  the  new  head  of  the 
Foreign  Office ;  during  the  three  years  that  he  held 
the  seals  Wellesley's  administration  proceeded  much 
on  the  lines  that  Hammond's  experience  suggested. 

The  next  change  in  the  directorship  of  the  depart- 
ment was  caused  by  Perceval's  assassination  in  the 
May  of  1812,  followed  by  the  abortive  attempts  to 
patch  up  a  ministry  in  which  both  Canning  and 
Castlereagh  should  serve  together  with  Wellesley, 
under  Grenville  and  Grey.  These  efforts  failed 
because  the  one  principle  to  which  Wellesley  at  the 
Foreign  Office  had  pledged  England  was  support  of 
the  Peninsular  War.  Grenville  and  Grey  regarded 
that  struggle  with  the  general  Whig  impatience  and 
only  wished  to  see  it  at  an  end.  On  the  8th  of  June 
1812  the  ministerial  interregnum  was  ended  by  the  for- 
mation of  Lord  Liverpool's  long-lived  Cabinet.  The 
new  premier  practically  offered  Canning  his  choice  of 
places  ;  the  offer  failed  to  include  the  leadership  of  the 
Commons,  which  was  to  go  to  Castlereagh.  Canning's 
refusal  was  prompted  by  no  personal  objection  to  serve 

under  Liverpool,  but  by  a  dislike  to  identify  himself 

221 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

with  an  administration,  formed  at  a  critical  time,  beset 
by  increasing  difficulties  and  not  likely,  as  it  seemed, 
to  be  favoured  by  fortune  in  any  department  of  its 
policy.  During  1810  and  1811  our  army  under 
Wellesley  had  dispossessed  Napoleon  of  Portugal. 
On  the  other  hand  most  of  Spain  was  held  by  the 
French  ;  the  victory  of  Wagram,  the  revolution  in 
Sweden  portended  apparently  the  consolidation  of 
Napoleon's  power.  The  French  conqueror's  marriage 
with  the  Austrian  emperor's  daughter,  Marie  Louise, 
in  1810,  is  now  known  to  have  been  but  the  device  of 
Metternich,  who  arranged  it,  for  luring  the  enemy  of 
Austria  to  his  ruin.  Followed,  however,  by  the  birth  of 
a  son,  the  King  of  Rome,  in  1811,  it  then  seemed 
to  insure  the  Napoleonic  dynasty's  perpetuation. 
Moreover,  the  Liverpool  government  had  scarcely 
established  itself  when  a  fresh  trouble  confronted  it  in 
the  outburst  of  the  second  American  War.  This  was 
the  earliest  great  event  that  engaged  Castlereagh's 
diplomacy.  Its  circumstances  and  issues  call  for  a  few 
words  of  explanation. 

This  fresh  contest  really  resulted  from  the  com- 
bined influences  of  the  original  revolt  of  our  trans- 
atlantic colonies  and  the  French  Revolution.  The 
Americans  never  forgot  the  help  rendered  them  by 
France  in  securing  them  independence.  Consequently 
at  the  outbreak  of  hostilities  between  the  French 
Republic  and  the  European  allies,  a  strong  party 
in  the  United  States  cried  out  for  war  against 
Great  Britain.  George  Washington  partially  re- 
strained the  anti-English  feeling  of  his  countrymen  ; 
one  of  his  latest  acts  was,  iQth  November  1794,  to  carry 

out  a  commercial  treaty  with  Great  Britain.      After 

222 


From  Tilsit  to  Chaumont 

his  retirement,  the  one  check  upon  American  en- 
thusiasm for  revolutionary  France  disappeared.  The 
maritime  code  of  France  and  the  Orders  in  Council  of 
England  placed  American  commerce  between  two 
fires.  Obviously,  however,  it  was  to  the  interest  of 
France  not  to  alienate  from  her  a  Power  so  ready  to 
take  part  with  her  against  England  as  the  United 
States.  Finally  the  Franco-American  treaty  of  Mor- 
fontaine,  3Oth  September  1800,  established  between  the 
two  countries  a  new  code.* 

British  diplomacy  now  prepared  to  counteract  the 
Morfontaine  Convention  by  a  treaty  of  amity,  com- 
merce and  navigation ;  this  was  eventually  signed, 
December  1806,  in  London  by  Castlereagh  and  the 
American  plenipotentiary.  That  arrangement  was 
repudiated  by  President  Jefferson,  who  in  an  angry 
message  to  Congress  denounced  in  1807  the  revised 
and  more  stringent  version  of  the  British  Orders  in 
Council.  In  the  March  of  1808  the  United  States 
enforced  the  Non- Intercourse  Act.  This  forbade  all 
dealings  with  either  of  the  European  belligerents, 
expressly  denounced  the  English  Orders  in  Council, 
but  ignored  the  Berlin  or  Milan  Decrees.  Meanwhile 
Jefferson  had  been  succeeded  in  the  American  pre- 
sidency by  Madison,  who  instructed  his  Foreign 
Secretary,  Smith,  to  endeavour  to  compose  the 
difference  with  the  English  representative  at  Wash- 
ington, Erskine.  The  violent  search  by  an  English 
ship  of  the  American  frigate  Chesapeake,  and  one 
or  two  other  collisions  on  the  high  seas  between 
United  States  and  British  vessels,  had  so  heated 
the  popular  mind  that  a  diplomatic  rupture  had 

*  Alison's  Europe,  vol.  v.  p.  97. 
223 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

become  inevitable.  On  the  i8th  of  June  1812,  both 
American  chambers,  by  large  majorities,  declared  the 
existence  of  war  between  Great  Britain  and  the  United 
States.  Before  that  denouement,  Castlereagh  had  no 
sooner  established  himself  at  the  Foreign  Office  than 
the  Orders  in  Council,  which  had  been  one  of  the 
causes  of  this  new  war,  were  repealed  by  him.  Here 
Castlereagh  did  not,  as  has  been  said,  undo  Canning's 
policy  ;  he  merely  gave  effect  to  it,  for  as  early  as  the 
December  of  1808  Canning  had  protested  to  the 
original  deviser  of  these  Orders  against  their  continu- 
ance. Canning,  of  course,  finding  them  in  existence, 
had  first  adopted  and  then  stiffened  them.  The  idea 
of  these  Orders  originated  with  one  who,  now  (1812) 
agreeing  with  Castlereagh  in  their  repeal,  like  him 
still  insisted  on  their  absolute  necessity  in  the  first 
instance.  This  was  George  Rose,  the  already  men- 
tioned (page  203)  Secretary  to  the  Treasury  under  Pitt, 
and  President  of  the  Board  of  Trade  under  Portland, 
and,  though  not  in  the  Cabinet,  consequently  a  minis- 
terial colleague  of  Canning  and  Castlereagh.  As  Can- 
ning said  during  the  debate  which  preceded  the  annul- 
ment of  the  Orders,  the  step  had  been  taken  in  the  first 
place  for  political  not  commercial  reasons  ;  it  had  not 
proved  altogether  successful ;  it  was  now  time  to  retrace  it. 
This  is  not  the  place  to  relate  the  incidents,  com- 
paratively little  known  though  they  are,  of  the  war 
with  our  transatlantic  kinsmen  which  resulted  from  the 
retaliatory  measures  against  the  Continental  System, 
initiated  as  they  were  by  the  Whigs  and  continued  by 
the  Tories.  The  second  Anglo-American  war  was 
closed,  on  the  24th  of  December  1814,  by  the  Treaty 

of  Ghent.     This  purely  Anglo-Saxon  convention  was 

224 


From  Tilsit  to  Chaumont 

by  no  means  a  definite  settlement  of  all  outstanding 
difficulties,  was  silent  about  the  right  of  search,  a  chief 
cause  of  quarrel  and  subsequently  always  refused  by 
America.  Its  chief  permanent  interest  arises  from  two 
of  its  provisions  ;  one  of  these  concerned  the  boundary 
of  the  American  State  of  Maine  and  the  British 
province  of  New  Brunswick.  Another  clause  con- 
tained the  principle  of  international  arbitration.  The 
St  Croix  river  formed  the  boundary  line  between  the 
American  and  British  dominions.  The  ownership  of 
certain  territories  near  this  stream,  as  well  as  of  islands 
in  the  bay  into  which  it  flowed,  was  to  be  settled  by 
a  mixed  American  and  British  commission.  Any 
disputed  point  was  to  be  referred  to  some  friendly 
sovereign,  whose  judgment  was  to  be  final.  The 
great  lakes,  which,  roughly  speaking,  divide  the  British 
from  the  United  States'  possessions  of  North  America, 
had  been  the  scene  of  some  severe  fighting  in  the 
past  war.  Their  future  neutrality  was  to  be  insured 
by  the  prohibition  on  their  waters  of  all  armed  vessels. 
The  arbitration  machinery  provided  at  Ghent  was 
resorted  to  in  1834  when  the  King  of  the  Netherlands, 
as  umpire,  made  a  division  of  disputed  territory  satis- 
factory to  neither  party  and  eventually  repudiated  by 
both.  Anglo-American  relations,  as  will  be  more  fully 
shown  hereafter,  were  to  be  placed  on  a  more  satis- 
factory footing  by  the  British  surrender  of  the  right  of 
search  at  the  Paris  Congress  of  1856.  They  were 
only  disturbed  for  the  moment  by  the  Trent  affair 
in  1863. 

The     Continental     movements     which     followed 
Napoleon's  Moscow   disasters  in   1812  and  their  re- 

lations  with  British  diplomacy  may  now  be  mentioned. 
P  225 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

While  Castlereagh  was  about  to  reconcile  England  with 
her  kin  beyond  the  Atlantic  by  the  Treaty  of  Ghent,  the 
agency  of  Prussia  was  laying  the  foundation  of  a  new 
European  system.  By  the  Convention  of  Tauroggen 
(3<Dth  December  1812)  the  Prussian  general,  York, 
liberated  from  the  French  service  the  German  soldiers 
pressed  by  Napoleon  into  his  army.  The  reconstruc- 
tion of  the  Prussian  military  system  by  Stein's  military 
reforms  followed ;  Prussia's  position  as  a  first-rate 
Power  was  assured.  What  part  would  the  Czar  take  ? 
Would  any  memories  of  Tilsit  still  hold  the  Eastern  to 
the  Western  Caesar  ?  At  St  Petersburg  a  strong 
French  faction  had  been  headed  by  the  Czar's  favourite 
minister,  Romanzoff.  The  fascination  exercised  by 
the  personal  greatness  of  Napoleon  on  Alexander 
had  been  but  temporarily  weakened.  It  was  now 
apparently  as  strong  as  ever.  The  visionary  element 
in  the  Czar's  temperament,  which  explains  so  much  of 
his  vacillation  and  so  many  of  his  inconsistencies,  was 
accompanied  by  a  jealousy  that  matched  even  his 
dissimulation.  RomanzofFs  advocacy  of  the  benefits 
Russia  might  yet  gain  from  the  goodwill  of  a  country 
whose  leading  spirit  was  showing  the  extraordinary 
degree  of  recuperative  power  inherent  in  Napoleon, 
may  have  been  more  urgent  than  discreet.  The 
Northern  autocrat  at  any  rate  resented  it,  plainly 
charged  his  minister  with  interested  motives,  and 
looked  for  advice  elsewhere.  It  was  largely  an 
English  weight  that  decisively  turned  the  scale  against 
France.  Castlereagh  and  Metternich  had  recently 
come  to  an  agreement  about  the  reconstruction  of 
France  in  the  general  interest  of  Europe  on  lines 

which   Alexander   approved.       The    Czar   practically 

226 


From   Tilsit  to  Chaumont 

endorsed  the  English  and  Austrian  diplomatists'  plan 
by  eventually  resolving  to  treat  Napoleon  as  the 
public  enemy  of  Europe.  The  Scandinavian  Powers 
required  no  diplomatic  pressure  to  follow  the  Prussian 
lead.  Charles  XIII.  then  still  reigned  in  Sweden; 
Bernadotte,  whose  fortunes  had  been  made  by 
Napoleon,  acted  as  regent,  with  all  the  power  of  the 
state  in  his  hands.  "Tell  your  master,"  he  had 
said,  on  i3th  February  1813,  to  Tarrauch,  the 
Prussian  ambassador  at  Stockholm,  "  that  in  six  weeks 
I  shall  disembark  at  any  point  of  Prussian  territory 
desired  35,000  Swedes,  as  many  Prussians  and  10,000 
Germans."  The  real  direction  of  European  affairs 
had  now  passed  to  a  mightier  force  than  that  wielded 
by  generals  or  statesmen. 

The  French  Revolution  had  given  men  ideas  of 
liberty,  of  self-government,  and  had  taught  them  the 
power  of  the  individual  in  politics.  The  great  soldier 
whom  the  Revolution  had  raised  up,  by  trampling  on 
the  races  and  tribes  of  the  Continent,  had  insured  a 
reaction  in  favour  of  nationality  as  a  principle.  With- 
out that  ethnic  revival,  Wellington's  armies,  Canning's 
and  Castlereagh's  diplomacy,  would  not  have  expelled 
Bonaparte  from  the  Peninsula  by  1814.  The  Nemesis 
which  finally  overthrew  Bonaparte  was  the  offspring  of 
a  diplomacy  so  infatuated  as  to  ignore  the  renascence 
of  nationality  as  a  political  force. 

On  the  1 4th  of  October  1809,  Napoleon  had  signed 
the  last  convention  to  which  he  ever  put  his  pen  as  con- 
queror. This  was  the  Treaty  of  Vienna,  stripping  the 
Austrian  Empire  of  50,000  square  miles,  of  more  than 
4,000,000  inhabitants,  extending  the  empire  of  France  to 

the  gates  of  Constantinople,  and  cutting  off  Austria  from 

227 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

the  sea  by  the  line  of  Illyrian  provinces  in  which  the 
French  power  had  entrenched  itself  on  the  shores  of 
the  Adriatic.  As  yet  Austria  had  not  joined  the  new 
European  coalition  against  the  mighty  victim  of 
Moscow.  The  French  ambassador  to  the  court  of 
Francis  I.,  Otto,  in  his  letters  home  drew  a  powerful 
picture  of  the  gloomy  impression  of  the  French  future 
stamped  on  the  Austrian  mind  by  rival  diplomatists. 
The  Austrian  aristocracy,  with  Metternich  for  its 
prophet,  now  protested  that  they  had  always  detested 
and  never  believed  in  the  Napoleonic  empire.  The 
first  duty  of  their  sovereign  and  his  statesmen  was 
to  resume  their  historic  position  at  the  head  of  the 
Germanic  power.  At  once  the  state  must  be  freed  from 
its  blighting  connection  with  Bonaparte.  Otto  faced 
this  storm  of  personal  and  political  obloquy  with  equal 
courage  and  skill.  He  had  indeed  an  ally  in  the  Austrian 
contriver  of  reaction,  Metternich.  This  diplomatist 
had  learned  the  rudiments  of  his  art  abroad  ;  he  who 
perfected  himself  by  his  English  experiences,  and 
above  all  by  his  contact  with  Castlereagh.  The 
future  president  at  the  Congress  of  Vienna  was  then 
in  the  prime  of  life,  fresh  from  those  ambassadorships 
at  Dresden,  Berlin  and  Paris  in  which  he  had  learned 
so  thoroughly  the  business  of  his  profession.  Entirely 
devoid  of  personal,  though  not  of  political  preferences, 
Metternich  knew  that  his  country's  position  midway 
between  the  two  Powers  gave  her  as  much  to  fear 
from  Russia  as  from  France.  His  sole  object,  never 
for  a  moment  lost  sight  of,  was  so  to  use  the  oppor- 
tunities developed  by  events  that  Austria  might  secure 
the  means  of  maintaining  her  independence  in  the 

struggle  which  he  saw  to  be  approaching.    This  contest, 

228 


From  Tilsit  to  Chaumont 

as  he  held,  must  shake  every  monarchy  to  its  base. 
As  yet,  however,  there  had  not  sounded  the  final 
stroke  of  the  hour  of  Napoleon's  doom.  Metternich 
therefore  with  his  professional  colleagues  affected  to 
regard  Bonaparte  as  Austria's  very  good  ally.  Castle- 
reagh's  representatives  unofficially  sounded  him  on 
joining  England  in  the  last  movement  against  Bona- 
parte. Metternich  expressed  admiration  for  the 
lofty  qualities  of  Great  Britain,  but  was  prevented  by 
genuine  devotion  to  French  interests  from  entering 
into  even  his  admired  friend  Castlereagh's  proposals 
without  the  knowledge  and  approval  of  France.  The 
desertion  of  York's  division  from  Napoleon  in  1812 
had  made  Metternich  more  reserved,  perhaps,  about 
the  French  alliance  ;  it  did  not  affect  the  exclusively 
Austrian  aim  of  his  policy.  Castlereagh  now  re- 
enforced  the  applications  which  poured  into  the 
Austrian  from  the  Prussian  capital.  "If,"  said  the 
English  minister,  "the  Imperial  armies  are  placed  on  a 
war  footing,  the  British  Treasury  will  at  once  furnish 
ten  millions  sterling." 

Next  to  solicitude  for  his  own  state  came  Metternich's 
fear  of  a  reaction.  The  revolutionary  wars,  he  saw,  had 
begun  in  the  union  of  the  kings  of  Europeagainstapeople 
—that  of  France.  The  hostilities  which  had  convulsed 
Europe  since,  had  now  resolved  themselves  into  a  com- 
bination of  monarchs  and  peoples  against  a  single  soldier. 
That  soldier  was  crushed — but  by  forces  as  democratic 
as  those  which  the  French  Revolution  itself  had  first 
brought  into  play.  In  Prussia,  in  the  Tyrol,  in  Austria 
itself,  the  masses  had  risen  against  the  tyrant  who  till 
then  had  defied  all.  Those  masses  were  indeed  now 

well  affected  enough  towards  those  who  were   born 

229 


The  Story   of  British  Diplomacy 

and  bred  to  govern  them.  But  was  it  to  be  supposed 
that  the  multitude,  having  learned  the  reality  of  its 
power,  would  long  acquiesce  in  subjection  to  any 
crowned  ruler  ?  Metternich  therefore  aimed  at  giving 
the  Austrian  Kaiser  an  army  at  least  as  powerful  as 
that  now  possessed  by  Prussia.  "  It  is  moreover,"  he 
had  long  since  said  to  Napoleon,  "  necessary  to  us  as 
your  ally.  We  may  not  draw  the  sword,  but  we 
cannot  speak  with  authority  in  the  council -chamber 
unless  we  are  in  a  position  to  draw  it  with  some  effect." 
These  considerations  had  not  indeed  prevented 
Metternich  from  approaching  Castlereagh  with  pro- 
posals for  a  general  pacification.  The  French  am- 
bassador in  London  may,  as  Metternich  said,  have 
been  privy  to  all  that  was  going  forward.  At  the 
same  time  the  mission  of  the  Austrian  agent  to 
London  was  marked  by  elaborate  secrecy  ;  that  he 
might  avoid  Paris,  the  Vienna  emissary  travelled  by 
the  circuitous  route  of  Copenhagen  and  Gothenburg. 
The  exact  proposal  thus  brought  to  Castlereagh  was, 
for  such  friendly  intervention  on  the  part  of  Austria, 
a  peacemaker  armed  to  the  teeth,  as  would  bring  to 
a  close  the  desolating  war.  Not  that  Austria  con- 
templated active  opposition  to  Napoleon.  On  the 
contrary,  Wessenberg,  the  Vienna  envoy,  was  to 
insist  with  the  British  Foreign  Office  on  the  good 
understanding  that  existed  between  Vienna  and 
the  Tuileries.  The  French  Government,  however,  so 
effectually  dissembled  all  affection  for  its  Austrian  ally 
that,  contriving  to  intercept  the  messenger  from  Vienna, 
it  arrested  him  at  Hamburg,  and  examined  all  his 
despatches  to  report  on  to  Napoleon.  At  the  same 
time  Austria's  role  as  European  mediator  did  not 

230 


From  Tilsit  to  Chaumont 

prevent  the  favourable  reception  at  Vienna  of  Stack- 
berg,  sent  in  confidence  by  the  Czar  with  view 
to  an  Austro- Russian  alliance  against  France.  The 
address  and  skill  of  the  .consummate  Metternich  en- 
sured him  against  any  false  move  in  the  complicated 
game  of  double  intrigue.  Each  member  of  the 
European  coalition  against  France,  as  well  as  the 
French  minister  at  Vienna,  Otto,  by  turn  believed 
himself  to  enjoy  the  monopoly  of  Austrian  friendship 
and  confidence. 

While,  by  his  alternate  or  simultaneous  attentions 
to  France  and  the  leaders  of  the  new  alliance  against 
her,  Metternich  was  gaining  time  for  his  country 
to  strengthen  her  armaments,  British  diplomacy 
was  paying  to  Napoleon  some  of  the  homage  of 
imitation.  The  French  emperor  enriched  any  state 
that  he  wished  for  the  moment  to  conciliate  at  the 
expense  of  his  friends  or  foes  indifferently.  Great 
Britain,  a  la  Bonaparte,  sometimes  found  it  inter- 
nationally useful  to  give  away  what  was  not  strictly 
hers  to  give.  When,  however,  she  bought  votes  in 
the  European  council-chamber,  she  never  asked  any 
but  her  enemies  to  pay  for  them.  Napoleon,  on  the 
other  hand,  almost  by  choice,  plundered  his  friends  if  it 
suited  him  to  make  a  deal  with  either  foes  or  neutrals. 
Thus  at  Tilsit,  to  gain  the  Czar,  he  had  taken  Finland 
from  Sweden,  though  he  had  not  long  since  concluded 
an  armistice  with  the  Swedish  king  ;  the  compensation 
to  be  granted  Sweden  was  Norway,  which  formed  a 
part  of  Denmark.  Not  to  be  behind-hand  in  the 
general  generosity  at  the  expense  of  others,  England 
now  came  forward  with  the  suggestion  that  Denmark 

should  make  good  any  losses  she  had  sustained  out  of 

231 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

Saxony,  which  was  indeed  in  the  possession  of  an 
enemy,  but  to  which  Britain  had  no  more  of  lawful 
title  than  belonged  to  its  then  holder,  Napoleon  him- 
self. Metternich  bided  his  time  with  the  clear  fore- 
knowledge that  Napoleon,  in  the  manner  he  had 
always  done,  would  find  some  chance  of  separately 
negotiating  with  the  Powers  allied  against  him.  The 
detachment  from  it  of  any  member  of  this  league 
might,  as  the  Austrian  diplomatist  saw,  suddenly 
change  the  whole  face  of  Europe.  So  it  fell  out.  At 
the  very  crisis  of  Franco-Austrian  negotiations, 
Napoleon  ingeniously  attempted  to  bring  back  his 
relations  with  the  Czar  to  the  point  reached  at  Tilsit ; 
he  therefore  sent  his  envoy  Caulaincourt  to  St 
Petersburg  to  arrange  a  fresh  Franco- Russian  treaty 
on  the  basis  of  dismembering  Austria.  This  was  only 
one  in  a  series  of  diplomatic  efforts  by  Napoleon  to 
withdraw  Russia  from  the  coalition  and  to  deal  with 
Alexander  singly.  There  is  an  old  story  of  a 
conscience-stricken  thief  on  his  deathbed  sending 
for  a  clergyman.  The  holy  man  gave  absolution  on 
confession,  and  putting  his  hand  to  his  waistcoat 
pocket  found  that  his  watch  had  gone.  The  pro- 
fessional instinct,  even  in  articulo  mortis,  had  been 
too  strong  for  the  felonious  penitent.  The  anecdote 
exactly  illustrates  the  manner  in  which  Napoleon, 
even  when  he  must  have  known  that  he  had  lost 
his  last  stake,  went  on  with  his  endeavours  to  evade 
his  captors  by  robbing  them  separately  and  causing 
them  to  fall  out  with  each  other.  Within  twelve 
months  of  the  wreck  of  his  plans  at  Moscow,  Bona- 
parte had  coerced  Austria  and  Prussia  to  join  him 

against  Russia.     When  the  two  German  Powers  shook 

232 


From  Tilsit  to  Chaumont 

off  his  grasp,  diplomacy  had  no  very  difficult  task  in 
making  of  the  entire  Continent  a  camp  armed  against 
its  recent  conqueror.  England,  Russia,  Austria  and 
Prussia  took  the  lead  ;  the  smaller  German  states  and 
the  Italian  sovereigns  dispossessed  by  Bonaparte  fell 
into  their  subordinate  places. 

After  the  concentration  of  the  confederates  in 
Saxony,  the  Leipzig  victory  gave  them  the  whole  of 
Germany.  Their  first  specific  proposals  for  peace 
(November  1813)  was  the  offer  to  Napoleon  of  France 
as  it  existed  in  1 800.  When  these  terms  were  refused, 
there  followed,  in  February  1814,  the  Congress  of 
Chatillon.  The  foreign  plenipotentiaries  who  assisted 
at  this  meeting  were,  on  behalf  of  Austria,  Count 
Stadion  ;  for  Russia,  Count  Razumoffski ;  Prussia  sent 
Baron  Humboldt ;  Napoleon  was  represented  by  his 
deputy,  the  able  and  trusty  Caulaincourt,  who  had 
become  to  him  even  more  than  was  Talleyrand  at 
the  zenith  of  his  skill  and  influence.  The  English 
delegates  were  Lord  Aberdeen,  Lord  Cathcart  and 
Sir  Charles  Stewart,  the  latter  our  ambassador 
successively  at  Berlin  and  Vienna,  and  the  half-brother 
of  Castlereagh,  whom  he  eventually  succeeded  in  the 
Londonderry  marquisate.  The  occasion,  however, 
seemed  to  demand  a  still  more  authoritative  envoy 
from  Great  Britain.  The  most  ubiquitous  and  active 
diplomatist  of  this  epoch  was  the  cosmopolitan  Count 
Pozzo  di  Borgo,  a  Corsican  by  birth,  of  exactly  the 
same  age  as  the  famous  compatriot  to  whose  ruin  he 
applied  all  his  energies  and  opportunities.  He  had 
always  been  ready  to  act  as  international  agent  for 
any  Court  or  Cabinet  which  made  it  worth  his  while. 
In  this  way  he  had  a  little  earlier  in  his  career  been 

233 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

largely  employed  on  foreign  and  domestic  errands  by 
Pitt.  As  he  was  frequently  in  England  at  the  time, 
there  seems  no  reason  why  he  should  not  have  fetched 
and  carried  for  Canning,  or  why,  for  that  matter,  he 
should  not  have  been  one  of  Canning's  informants 
in  the  affair  of  Tilsit.  His  wife's  drawing-room  had 
few  rivals  as  a  fashionable  and  distinguished  centre. 
In  the  Pozzo  di  Borgo  salon  the  Prime  Minister, 
Lord  Liverpool,  may  have  first  decided  upon  the 
expediency  of  despatching  to  Chatillon  no  less  an 
envoy  than  his  Foreign  Secretary.  That,  indeed,  had 
been  the  object  of  Pozzo  di  Borgo's  latest  visit  to 
London.  As  regards  the  arrangement  of  any  practic- 
able terms  with  the  French  emperor,  Pozzo  di  Borgo 
had  indeed  at  this  time  not  less  completely  purged  his 
mind  of  illusions  than  had  long  since  been  done  by  the 
Czar,  whose  court  and  policy  Pozzo  di  Borgo  then 
represented.  When  at  this  time  the  rulers  and  states- 
men of  Europe  did  agree,  their  unanimity  sooner  or 
later  produced  results.  The  sovereigns  and  their 
diplomatists  had  determined  to  place  Napoleon  outside 
the  pale  of  European  monarchs. 

The  conviction  which  had  possessed  Metternich 
when  he  was  negotiating  the  French  Emperor's 
marriage  to  the  Archduchess  Marie  Louise,  was  that 
destiny  had  selected  him  to  bait  the  trap  for  Bonaparte. 
In  this  object  he  found  a  tool  in  Pozzo  di  Borgo  and 
a  colleague  in  Castlereagh.  Hence  the  devout  reflec- 
tion contained  in  his  autobiography  between  1810  and 
1813 — "  Negotiations  and  events  will  bear  witness  to 
my  having  used  all  the  means  in  my  power  to  further 
the  ends  of  God."  The  final  instruction  given  by 
Napoleon  to  Caulaincourt  on  the  eve  of  the  meeting 

234 


From   Tilsit  to  Chaumont 

was,  "  Sign  anything  that  will  prevent  the  occupation 
of  Paris  by  the  victorious  Allies."  Among  all  the 
Powers,  Great  Britain  alone  brought  to  the  Congress 
a  generally  deserved  reputation  of  consistency.  She 
had  from  the  first  disclaimed  any  idea  of  territorial 
aggrandisement  as  the  result  of  victory.  As  for  the 
political  future  of  France,  that  was  for  France  to 
decide ;  Castlereagh  only  offered  the  suggestion  that 
the  best  guarantee  for  French  tranquillity  would  be 
found  in  a  Bourbon  restoration.  Before,  however, 
the  Congress  actually  met,  Napoleon's  successes 
against  Bliicher  had  raised  the  French  demand  and 
given  a  new  tone  of  exultant  defiance  to  the  conqueror. 
"At  least,"  he  remarked,  "I  am  nearer  to  Munich 
than  the  Allies  are  to  Paris."  He  therefore  clung  to 
the  belief  of  its  being  possible  to  break  the  European 
concert  and  come  to  terms  with  Austria  alone.  That 
end,  he  thought,  might  be  furthered  by  his  Austrian 
wife.  Metternich,  however,  may  have  trembled  for 
the  fate  of  Vienna,  but  was  quite  indifferent  to  the  fall 
of  Marie  Louise.  The  Austrian  princess  had  indeed 
served  the  diplomatist's  purpose  by  falsely  suggesting 
to  her  husband  that  he  had  a  friend  in  the  Kaiser  at 
Vienna. 

The  practical  outcome  of  the  Congress  of  Chatillon 
was  to  bring  home  to  Napoleon's  mind  the  fact  of 
his  dethronement  having  been  irrevocably  decreed. 
French  territory  was  to  be  kept  within  the  limits  of 
the  old  monarchy  as  it  existed  before  the  Revolution. 
Should  that  arrangement  be  rejected  by  Bonaparte, 
Austria,  Prussia,  Russia  and  England  were  to  main- 
tain each  of  them  150,000  men  in  the  field.  In 
Idition  to  the  cost  of  her  own  army,  Great  Britain 

235 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

was  to  pay  an  annual  subsidy  of  ,£5,000,000,  to  be 
equally  divided  among  the  other  powers.  At  the 
headquarters  of  the  armies  belonging  to  each  of  the 
contracting  Powers  were  to  be  military  experts  repre- 
senting the  various  Allies.  To  prevent  any  quarrels 
over  the  plunder,  the  trophies,  it  was  stipulated,  should 
be  divided  in  equal  parts  among  the  combatants. 
No  peace  was  to  be  made  without  the  common  consent. 
The  Chaumont  Compact  held  good  for  twenty  years, 
and  admitted  of  renewal  before  that  term  expired. 
The  contingency,  in  view  of  which  the  Powers  for- 
mulated their  future  policy  by  the  treaty  of  Chaumont, 
realised  itself  when,  against  the  advice  of  Caulaincourt,, 
Napoleon  declined  the  offers  made  him  at  Chatillon, 
and  so  brought  that  congress  to  an  end. 

This  is  not  the  place  in  which  to  dwell  on  Napoleon's 
tardy  acceptance  of  the  situation,  on  his  abdication  (4th 
April  1814),  and,  through  the  combined  agencies  of 
his  former  minister  Talleyrand  and  his  old  ally  of  Tilsit 
Alexander,  the  recall  of  the  Bourbons  in  Louis  XVIII. 
The  next  international  episode  in  which  England 
actively  figured  was  the  Congress  of  Vienna.  This 
will  be  considered  in  a  new  chapter. 


236 


CHAPTER    X 

THE    BEGINNINGS    OF    NON-INTERVENTION 

The  Congress  of  Vienna — The  Kingdom  of  the  Netherlands  founded 
— Castlereagh's  colonial  bargains — Napoleon's  return  from  Elba 
— The  Second  Treaty  of  Paris — The  Holy  Alliance — Castlereagh 
and  Canning  compared — The  Conference  of  Aix-la-Chapelle — 
The  Quadruple  Treaty — The  Conference  of  Troppau  and 
Laybach — The  Traditional  Non-intervention  Policy  of  Britain — 
Canning  and  Portugal — Lord  Strangford — Castlereagh's  rela- 
tions with  Austria  and  Naples — Growth  of  Popular  Power 
throughout  Europe  —  The  Franco-Spanish  Understanding — 
Canning  and  America — The  Congress  of  Verona — The  Greek 
Question — The  Treaty  of  London — The  Death  of  Canning — 
His  Character  as  a  Diplomatist. 

ENGLISH  diplomacy,  personified  by  Castlereagh 
or  his  representatives,  had  been  not  less  active 
in  negotiating  the  treaties  of  Chaumont  and  of  Paris 
than  had  been  English  generalship  in  effecting 
Napoleon's  military  overthrow.  The  London  Foreign 
Office  had  now  to  prepare  for  the  Vienna  Congress. 
Their  programme  for  this  assemblage  had  been  drawn 
up  by  the  chief  European  Powers  in  a  secret  clause  of 
the  Treaty  of  Paris.  Before  his  overthrow  at  Waterloo, 
half  of  Europe  might  have  been  described  as  belonging 
to  Napoleon,  the  other  half  to  the  nations  banded 
against  him.  Austria,  England,  Prussia  and  Russia 
had  privately  agreed  to  limit  their  territorial  discussions 
to  those  portions  of  the  world  which  Bonaparte's  dis- 
appearance had  left  without  a  ruler.  Amid  the  con- 
flicts, confusions  and  obscurities  of  the  meeting, 

237 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

Castlereagh  for  England,  Talleyrand  for  France, 
Nesselrode  for  Russia,  saw  clearly  what  each  of  them 
meant.  Canning  did  not  enter  the  Liverpool  Cabinet 
as  President  of  the  Board  of  Control  till  1816,  a  year 
after  the  Congress  had  done  its  work.  He  was  there- 
fore the  Foreign  Secretary's  Cabinet  colleague  when,  as 
will  presently  be  seen,  he  attended  the  Aix-la-Chapelle 
conferences.  As  regards  the  resettlement  of  Europe, 
Canning  and  Castlereagh  agreed  with  each  other  on  most 
of  the  essential  points.  They  both  showed  themselves 
equally  penetrated  by  the  ideas  of  Pitt  in  thinking 
the  undue  preponderance  of  Russia  not  less  dangerous 
to  the  world's  tranquillity  than  the  ascendancy  of 
revolutionary  France. 

The  first  antidote  to  the  Russian  peril  was  the 
readmission  of  France  under  her  new  king  into  the 
comity  of  great  Powers.  Here,  then,  at  Vienna, 
Castlereagh  might  count  upon  the  support  of  Talley- 
rand, who,  playing  entirely  for  his  own  hand,  awaited 
the  cropping  up  of  some  question,  disagreements 
about  which  might  help  his  own  country.  Thus  the 
subject  either  of  Poland  or  Saxony  might  divide  Europe 
into  halves ;  any  of  these  issues  might  procure  an 
ally  for  France.  The  Continental  statesmen  with  whom 
in  this  enterprise  Talleyrand  had  to  lay  his  account 
were  the  Prussian  representative  Hardenberg,  and  his 
compatriot  Stein,  who  was  at  Vienna,  less  as  Harden  - 
berg's  colleague,  than  to  offer  his  advice  on  any 
military  topics  that  might  arise.  The  smaller  states 
were  represented  by  Lowenheim  and  Schoell.  Metter- 
nich  presided  over  the  meetings.  Castlereagh  was 
already  his  acquaintance.  The  two  men  became  at 
Vienna  not  only  colleagues,  but  up  to  a  certain  point 

238 


The  Beginnings  of  Non-Intervention 

confederates.  At  least  Metternich  openly  congratulated 
himself  that  the  changes  and  chances  of  party  govern- 
ment had  sent  him  the  patrician  Castlereagh  instead 
of  the  parvenu  Canning.  A  high  Tory  himself,  Castle- 
reagh was  charged  with  the  representation  of  a  Tory 
party  and  a  Tory  policy  at  Vienna.  In  performing 
this  task  he  showed  not  only  ability  and  firmness,  but 
moderation  and  even  liberality  ;  he  proved  himself  as 
true  a  disciple  of  Pitt  as  Canning  could  have  done  in 
supporting  Talleyrand's  claim  of  a  place  for  the  French 
envoy  at  the  table.  He  had  carried  Metternich  with 
him  in  defeating  the  Russian  proposal  that  France 
should  not  be  admitted  to  the  congress  till  all  questions 
affecting  her  had  been  arranged  by  the  Allies. 

The  Czar  had  done  much  to  promote  the  Vienna 
meeting  ;  at  its  opening  he  had  pleased  everyone  by  his 
adroit  solution  of  a  difficulty  about  precedence  among 
the  plenipotentiaries.  "  Let  them,"  said  Alexander,  "  sit 
and  sign  in  the  alphabetical  order  of  their  respective 
states."  That  the  congress  did  anything  more  than 
record  the  decisions  of  Russia  was  due  mainly  to  the 
English  deputy  and  his  Austrian  coadjutor.  Naturally, 
therefore,  France  went  with  them  in  resisting  the  Czar's 
attempt  to  steal  a  territorial  march  on  Europe.  The 
Russian  scheme  was  that,  as  the  Grand-duchy  of 
Warsaw,  Poland  should  become  a  Muscovite  province. 
This,  said  Nesselrode,  would  be  only  a  proper  recogni- 
tion of  the  international  services  rendered,  and  the 
personal  sacrifices  made  by  Alexander.  Bribed  by  the 
promise  of  Saxony  for  Prussia,  Hardenberg  supported 
Nesselrode.  The  assembly  was  on  the  point  of  being 
dissolved — for  the  Czar  talked  of  securing  by  the 
sword  that  which  the  injustice  of  the  council-chamber 

239 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

refused.  He  would,  however,  have  united,  with  one 
exception,  all  the  Powers  against  him.  Prussia  indeed 
was  at  his  beck  and  call.  Metternich  and  Talleyrand 
agreed  with  Castlereagh  to  combine  their  armies,  if 
necessary,  against  Alexander,  and  to  pledge  themselves 
to  a  kind  of  self-denying  ordinance  in  carrying  out  the 
Treaty  of  Paris.  With  some  reluctance,  Castlereagh  was 
brought  to  acquiesce  in  the  addition  of  a  secret  clause 
allaying  the  land-hunger  of  Prussia  at  the  expense 
of  Saxony  instead  of  Poland.  Metternich  had  now 
brought  round  Castlereagh  to  his  scheme  of  a  Germanic 
confederation,  hindered  indeed  by  Austrian  and  Prussian 
jealousies,  opposed  by  Talleyrand,  but  at  last  accepted. 
The  British  plenipotentiary  had  thus  prepared 
the  way  for  realising  an  ancient  tradition  of  British 
statesmanship  in  the  Low  Countries.  By  a  secret 
article  of  the  Treaty  of  Paris,  Austria  had  once  more 
explicitly  repudiated  any  claim  in  this  part  of  Europe. 
It  had  been  the  idea  of  Queen  Elizabeth  and  Burleigh 
on  behalf  of  England,  of  Henry  IV.  and  Sully  on 
the  side  of  France,  to  form  the  seventeen  provinces 
of  Flanders  into  a  single  state  by  way  of  barrier, 
as  English  statesmanship  desired,  against  Austria 
and  France; — as  French  diplomacy  designed,  against 
the  Hapsburgs.  In  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth 
centuries  the  same  idea  had  found  favour  with 
Pitt,  who  thought  that  the  principality  thus  to  be 
created  might  have  a  Prussian  suzerain.  So  long 
as  it  constituted  a  real  barrier  to  the  great  European 
Powers,  its  actual  ownership  seemed,  to  all  promoters 
of  the  plan,  of  secondary  significance.  The  great 
minds  which  had  advocated  it  all  ignored,  as  much 

as  did  Castlereagh  himself,  the  mutual  incompatibility 

240 


The  Beginnings  of  Non-intervention 

of  two  states  with  such  opposite  antecedents  as 
Belgium  and  Holland.  National  sentiment  was  not 
then  recognised  as  a  privilege  of  smaller  states. 
Castlereagh's  acquiescence  in  the  yoking  of  Belgium 
to  Holland  is  easily  explained ;  first,  he  followed  an 
ancient  Tory  and  national  tradition,  descending  from 
the  days  of  the  Tudors  to  those  of  Pitt ;  secondly, 
there  was  the  feeling  that  even  a  temporary  union 
might  diminish  the  French  temptation  to  provoke 
another  war.  No  influence  of  Canning's  over 
Castlereagh  stimulated  the  British  plenipotentiary  to 
a  protest  against  the  outrageous  impolicy  of  sub- 
jecting a  people,  republican  by  tradition  and  senti- 
ment like  the  Dutch,  to  a  heterogeneous  monarchy. 
The  new  state  came  into  existence,  and  the  King 
of  Holland  began  to  be  known  to  the  courts  of 
Europe  as  King  of  the  Netherlands  and  Grand- 
Duke  of  Luxemburg.  The  conditions  on  which  he 
received  his  fresh  dignities  were,  that  he  should  reign 
as  a  limited  and  parliamentary  sovereign,  after  the 
British  fashion,  and  that  he  should  share  with 
England  a  debt  of  ,£4,200,000  due  from  Russia  to 
the  Amsterdam  bankers.  Canning,  it  has  been  seen, 
realised  that,  wisely  administered  and  properly  used, 
our  colonies  could  make  England  a  self-supporting 
nation  for  whom  foreign  blockades,  like  that  of 
Napoleon,  could  have  no  fear.  If,  as  regards  the 
colonies,  Canning  was  before  his  time,  Castlereagh 
was  not  behind  it  in  making  a  surrender  which 
excited  the  scornful  comment  of  the  imprisoned 
Bonaparte.  Java  had  been  taken  by  England  in 
1810;  from  that  date  it  had  enjoyed  a  high  degree 
of  unbroken  prosperity.  It  was  now  signed  away  by 
Q  241 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

our  representative  at  Vienna.  In  return,  Castlereagh's 
diplomacy  obtained  for  England,  Berbice,  Demerara, 
Essequibo,  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  and  some  fair- 
sounding  but  futile  declarations  against  slavery. 
Portugal,  Spain  and  the  Netherlands  did  indeed 
commit  themselves  by  special  and  separate  agree- 
ments with  England  to  abolish  the  slave-trade  in 
all  parts  of  their  dominions  at  the  first  possible 
moment.  On  a  cognate  matter,  England  accepted, 
at  Castlereagh's  instance,  an  important  commission 
from  her  Allies.  Moorish  piracy  was  the  curse  of  the 
Mediterranean.  England  undertook  that  her  navy 
should  remove  it,  and  fulfilled  the  obligation  by  her 
great  sailor,  Lord  Exmouth.  After  this,  the  pleni- 
potentiaries were  so  much  keener  for  enjoyment  than 
for  work  as  to  inspire  the  Prince  de  Ligne  with 
the  epigram — "  The  Congress  dances  but  does  not 
advance." 

On  the  7th  of  March — according  to  one  account 
as  he  was  going  to  a  ball,  according  to  another  during 
his  midnight  slumbers — Metternich  received  the  news 
that  Napoleon  had  escaped  from  Elba,  was  being 
welcomed  with  enthusiasm  near  his  landing-place  in 
the  South  of  France ;  joined  at  every  stage  by  de- 
serters from  the  restored  Bourbon,  he  was  even  marching 
on  Paris.  Diplomatic  discussion  was  now  broken  by 
an  interval  of  national  dismay,  political  perturbation 
and  hurried  armings  of  Powers  great  and  smalL 
At  Vienna,  Castlereagh  and  Metternich  were  not 
entirely  taken  by  surprise.  Their  despatch-boxes 
contained  private  letters  from  recent  visitors  to  the 
captive  of  Elba,  intimating  that  his  reappearance 

on     the    mainland     might    occur     at    any    moment. 

242 


The  Beginnings  of  Non-Intervention 

Castlereagh  indeed  had,  on  the  earliest  selection 
of  Elba,  predicted  it.  The  only  way,  he  had  said, 
of  preventing  Napoleon's  return  and  a  renewal  of  the 
war,  was  to  confine  him  on  some  Atlantic  rock  like 
St  Helena.  The  congress  now  completed  its  work 
by  declaring  Napoleon  the  common  enemy  of  Europe, 
and  by  a  call  to  battle.  Chateaubriand  did  not 
become  ambassador  to  England  till  1822  ;  a  presenti- 
ment of  what  might  happen  showed  itself  in  a  remark 
he  made  as  a  Bourbon  courtier  in  the  February  of 
1815 — "If  the  cocked  hat  and  surtout  of  Napoleon 
were  placed  upon  a  stick  on  the  shores  of  Brest,  it 
would  cause  Europe  to  run  to  arms  from  one  end 
to  the  other." 

Comparing  notes  on  the  news  that  had  interrupted 
the  congress,  Castlereagh  and  Metternich  agreed  that 
luckily  the  thing  had  happened  at  least  a  fortnight 
before  it  was  due ;  what  if  it  had  come  before  the 
congress  had  dispersed  ?  Napoleon's  movements  had 
indeed  been  hastened  by  two  considerations.  His 
confidential  agent,  Meneval,  had  told  him  that  the 
congress,  if  it  sat  long  enough  to  agree  on  the  matter, 
would  certainly  ship  him  off  to  a  remote  spot  in  the 
Atlantic.  Napoleon  had  also  learned  from  the  news- 
papers, which  he  never  missed  seeing,  the  growing 
unpopularity  of  the  restored  Bourbons.  The  army  and 
the  nation  seemed  ripe  for  another  revolution.  More- 
over, the  season  approached  when  the  nights  would 
become  longer ;  his  departure  required  darkness  for 
safety.  Thus  there  was  no  time  to  be  lost.  On 
the  allied  sovereigns  and  their  ministers  Bonaparte's 
escape  had  an  electrical  effect ;  all  were  at  once 

galvanised  into  unanimity.     In  their  efforts  to  over- 

243 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

reach  each  other  and  to  secure  some  advantage  for 
their  royal  employers,  the  plenipotentiaries,  for  weeks 
past,  had  seemed  every  day  to  be  nearer  "to  a  rup- 
ture. Dynastic  rivalries  now  became  of  no  more 
account  than  national  aspirations.  After  the  victory 
of  Waterloo  had  completed  the  military  overthrow  be- 
gun at  Baylen  and  Leipzig,  Castlereagh,  Nesselrode 
and  Talleyrand  had  arranged  (2Oth  November  1815) 
the  second  Treaty  of  Paris. 

This  gave  to  France  a  frontier  rather  less  liberal 
than  was  provided  by  the  treaty  of  1814.  It  exacted 
from  her  an  indemnity  of  ^28,000,000,  and  further 
saddled  her  with  the  cost  of  a  foreign  army  of  occupa- 
tion for  not  less  than  three  or  more  than  five  years. 
England's  share  of  the  indemnity  paid  by  France 
amounted  to  ,£5,000,000.  Castlereagh  effected  a 
theatrical  surprise  by  announcing  that  he  had  re- 
ceived instructions  from  home  to  treat  the  British 
moiety  of  the  fine  levied  on  France  as  a  contribution 
to  the  cost  of  strengthening  the  Netherlands  frontier 
against  any  neighbouring  Power.  The  plenipo- 
tentiaries returned  the  compliment  by  at  once  un- 
animously nominating  the  Duke  of  Wellington  to  the 
command  of  the  army  of  occupation.  From  being 
the  liberator  of  Europe,  Wellington  was  now  be- 
coming, as  for  thirty  years  he  remained,  its  sage. 
Castlereagh  had  at  first  been  disposed  to  support 
Hardenberg  and  Stein  in  presenting  Prussia  with 
Alsace  and  Lorraine.  Wellington's  practical  com- 
mon-sense scoffed  at  a  transfer  based  upon  a  terri- 
torial connection  belonging  to  ancient  history,  and 
certain,  he  protested,  to  act  as  a  standing  challenge 

to  France  against  Prussia  in  the  future.     Metternich 

244 


The  Beginnings  of  Non-intervention 

and  Nesselrode  agreed  with  him.  The  proposal 
therefore  fell  through. 

Meanwhile  the  negotiations  for  the  second  Peace 
of  Paris  had  produced  an  incident  which  opened  a 
new  international  epoch ;  it  is  indeed  conventionally 
spoken  of  as  having  divided  English  diplomacy  into 
two  schools,  though,  as  will  afterwards  be  seen,  this 
was  its  apparent,  rather  than  a  real,  effect.  The 
Czar  himself  drew  Metternich  aside  with  a  request 
that  he  would  inform  his  master,  the  Emperor  Francis, 
of  the  Russian  ruler's  desire  to  ask  his  advice  on 
a  matter  purely  of  sentiment,  such  as  monarchs 
alone  could  decide.  The  meeting  between  the  two 
sovereigns  took  place  a  few  days  later.  Its  subject 
had  been  explained  in  a  memorandum  handed  in  the 
first  instance  by  Alexander  to  the  Austrian  diplomatist. 
On  examination  Metternich  found  it  to  contain  a 
philanthropic  aspiration  clothed  in  a  religious  garb. 
The  suggestion,  he  said,  supplied  no  material  for  a 
treaty,  and  had  in  it  a  great  many  phrases  that  might 
have  given  rise  to  theological  misconstruction. 

So  originated  the  famous  programme  of  absolutism, 
based  on  the  New  Testament,  that  Holy  Alliance  which 
was  to  go  some  way  towards  confirming  Canning  in  his 
policy  of  non-intervention,  as  well  as  towards  convert- 
ing to  it  reactionary  Tories  like  Castlereagh.  Each  of 
the  rulers  was  to  consider  himself  and  his  subjects  as 
members  of  a  Christian  family  comprising  the  whole 
Continent.  The  sovereigns  entering  into  the  sacred 
league  were  to  give  mutual  assistance  for  the  protection 
of  religion,  peace  and  justice  as  became  potentates 
entrusted  by  Providence  with  a  royal  mission.  Useful 

or  necessary  changes  in  legislation  and  administration 

245 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

ought  only  to  come  from  the  free,  intelligent  and  well- 
weighed  conviction  of  divinely  appointed  monarchs. 
Other  Powers  might  be  invited  or  permitted  to  support 
Austria,  Prussia  and  Russia  in  promoting  this  millen- 
nium. The  only  two  potentates  who  received  no 
invitation  from  the  Czar  were  the  pope  and  the 
Sultan  ;  the  former  was  omitted  as  being  the  tyrant  of 
Christendom  ;  the  latter  because  he  was  not  a  Chris- 
tian at  all.  The  Austrian  emperor  having  read  the 
paper,  remarked — "  If  this  refers  to  religion,  it  is  for 
my  confessor  to  consider ;  if  to  politics,  it  is  the 
business  of  Metternich."  The  Duke  of  Wellington 
thought  the  English  Parliament  would  have  liked 
something  a  little  more  precise.  On  the  other  hand 
the  English  Prince  Regent,  while  not  authorising  his 
ambassador  to  sign  the  alliance,  sent  from  the  Brighton 
Pavilion  his  blessing  to  a  compact  conceived  in  the 
interests  of  morality,  religion  and  all  the  virtues. 

At  the  congress  itself,  Castlereagh's  urbane 
grandeur  and  magnificent  serenity  produced  an  im- 
pression comparable  with  that  created  by  Beacons- 
field's  personal  ascendancy  some  sixty  years  afterwards 
at  the  Congress  of  Berlin.  Castlereagh's  territorial 
bargains  brought  us  as  well  out  of  the  business  as 
would  have  been  done  by  any  of  his  contemporaries. 
In  diplomacy,  Castlereagh  was  the  aristocratic  type  of 
an  aristocratic  system.  It  would  have  needed  an  ori- 
ginal and  creative  force  in  diplomacy  to  have  prevented 
the  unequal  marriage  between  Norway  and  Sweden,  as 
between  Belgium  and  Holland,  the  cession  of  Genoa  to 
the  King  of  Sardinia,  or  the  transfer  of  Venice  from  Italy 
to  the  Austrian  emperor.  Before  the  meeting  Metternich 
had  confided  to  the  Czar  his  suspicions  of  Castlereagh's 

246 


The  Beginnings  of  Non-intervention 

not  caring  more  for  legitimacy  than  did  Canning  him- 
self. Had,  however,  the  Austrian  diplomatist  found  his 
English  colleague  as  complacent  as  he  had  expected, 
Metternich  probably  would  not  have  complained  of 
having  had  to  spend  hours  daily  in  teaching  him  the 
position  of  the  chief  places  mentioned  by  the  plenipo- 
tentiaries. Discussing  at  St  Helena  the  results  of  the 
congress,  with  his  medical  friend  O'Meara,  Napoleon 
expressed  himself  more  contemptuously  and  even 
abusively  about  Castlereagh.  Yet  it  was  this  same 
captive  of  St  Helena  who  upon  another  occasion  said— 
"  There  must  be  a  great  deal  to  admire  in  a  man  who 
puts  Talleyrand  so  thoroughly  out  of  temper  as  Castle- 
reagh." The  difference  between  Canning  and  Castle- 
reagh as  international  statesmen  was  at  least  as  much 
one  of  temperament,  of  personal  prejudices,  of  social 
antecedents,  as  of  practical  politics.  Personally  Castle- 
reagh, like  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  was  not  interested 
in  "  the  mushroom  constitutions,"  as  they  called  them,  by 
which  the  two  Ferdinands,  Kings  of  Naples  and  Spain 
respectively,  were  restored  by  the  great  Continental 
Powers  to  put  down.  On  the  other  hand,  Canning's 
good  wishes  for  the  Spanish  Constitutionalists  were 
limited  by  his  policy  of  non-intervention  ;  at  the  begin- 
ning he  plainly  told  his  Spanish  friends  that  if  there 
was  to  be  a  struggle,  they  must  fight  the  battle  of 
political  freedom  for  themselves.  Foreign  politics  in 
1809  had  brought  the  disagreements  between  the  two 
men  to  an  issue  ;  the  same  department  of  affairs  was 
instrumental  in  re-establishing  relations  between  them 
in  1814.  Family  reasons  seem  to  have  made  Canning 
anxious  for  change  of  scene.  Castlereagh  suggested 

his  going  as  ambassador  to  Portugal.     Returning  to 

247 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

England  in  1816,  Canning  entered  the  Cabinet  as 
president  of  the  Board  of  Control.  To  speak  of 
Castlereagh  in  this  year  and  during  the  short  remainder 
of  his  life  as  the  promoter  of  an  international  system 
as  reactionary  as  Canning's  policy  had  been  pro- 
gressive, is  not  only  to  censure  Castlereagh  but  to 
reflect  upon  Canning  himself.  Whatever  the  foreign 
policy  carried  out,  having  been  settled  by  the  Cabinet, 
it  was  the  policy  of  Canning  as  well  as  of  Castlereagh. 
The  practical  unanimity  of  the  two  men  showed  itself 
in  connection  with  the  Aix-la-Chapelle  conferences, 
September  1818.  These  were  attended  by  Canning, 
if  not  as  Castlereagh's  official  representative,  yet  as  a 
Cabinet  Minister  speaking  with  experience  and  autho- 
rity on  foreign  affairs.  The  form  in  which  the  general 
results  of  the  Aix-la-Chapelle  meetings  were  embodied 
was  determined  by  England's  refusal  to  form  one  of  a 
general  league  like  that  of  the  Holy  Alliance.  That 
was  Liverpool's  ultimatum.  The  one  tangible  result 
of  the  Czar's  Holy  Alliance  project,  in  1815,  had  been  a 
Quadruple  Treaty  committing  England,  with  the  three 
other  great  Powers,  to  put  down  by  arms  any  fresh 
outbreak  of  Jacobinism  or  revolution  in  France. 

At  Aix-la-Chapelle  it  had  no  sooner  been  decided 
that  the  allied  armies  should  be  withdrawn  from  French 
soil  than  France,  under  a  legitimate  and  reactionary 
monarch,  Louis  XVIII.  claimed  admission  to  the 
Quadruple  Treaty.  She  further  supported  the  Austrian 
and  Russian  proposal  that  this  agreement  should  confer 
on  those  who  signed  it  the  power  of  calling  periodical 
conferences  for  maintaining  European  peace  and  order. 
Canning  first  protested  against  England's  acceptance  of 
any  such  responsibilities.  The  then  Foreign  Secretary 

248 


The  Beginnings  of  Non-Intervention 

and  the  Prime  Minister  went  with  him.  Only  in  a 
secret  treaty  was  any  mention  made  of  the  revolu- 
tionary contingencies  which  might  necessitate  inter- 
vention in  France.  The  published  treaty  merely 
announced  that  France,  being  once  more  happily 
settled  under  her  natural  sovereign  would  co-operate 
with  her  Allies  in  maintaining  the  general  peace.  For 
that  end,  it  was  added,  special  meetings  of  the  Powers 
might  be  held  after  the  regular  diplomatic  formalities. 
Then  came  the  English  clause  framed  by  Canning  and 
stating  that  in  no  case  would  the  affairs  of  a  smaller 
state  be  discussed  by  the  great  Powers  except  at  its  own 
request  and  in  the  presence  of  its  own  representatives. 
It  was  the  events  which  followed  the  Aix-la- 
Chapelle  gathering  that  in  the  public  mind  brought 
Canning  and  Castlereagh  into  sharp  and  decisive 
contrast  with  each  other  and  insured  the  former's 
return  to  the  Foreign  Office.  The  Continental 
sovereigns  and  their  ministers,  on  leaving  Aix-la- 
Chapelle,  arranged  to  meet  again  as  soon  as  necessary 
or  convenient.  Two  years  later  this  further  meeting 
took  place  at  Troppau.  There  they  publicly  paraded 
the  royal  right  of  federative  action  for  the  support  of 
legitimacy  and  absolutism,  as,  it  was  declared,  had 
been  decided  at  Aix-la-Chapelle.  In  1821  took  place 
another  gathering  at  Laybach  to  restore  Ferdinand  of 
Naples  to  his  throne.  Castlereagh  reluctantly,  as  it 
seemed,  and  indecisively  protested  that  England  could 
not  be  a  party  to  any  programme  of  this  sort.  He  did 
not,  however,  withdraw  the  British  representative  from 
the  place  where  the  Eastern  monarchs  were  in  confer- 
ence. Those  Allies  therefore  agreed  to  ignore  England 

and  to  act  for  themselves  against  the  rising  nationalities. 

249 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

The  City  now  took  alarm  ;  throughout  England, 
indeed,  finance  and  commerce  cried  for  something 
less  ambiguous  and  compromising  than  Castlereagh's 
diplomacy.  How,  it  was  asked  from  Liverpool  to 
Plymouth,  were  plain  men  to  know  what  they  were 
committed  to,  when  ministers  spoke  with  one  voice 
in  Parliament  and  with  another  in  Continental  council- 
chambers  ?  The  necessity  of  confidential  understand- 
ings— not  a  Holy  Alliance  or  a  formal  compact  of  any 
kind  to  hold  the  revolutionary  spirit  in  check — had 
been  pleaded  for  by  Castlereagh.  "  Secret  treaties," 
replied  Canning,  "have  become  impossible.  What- 
ever conventions  you  have  must  be  examined,  must 
be  ratified  in  Parliament,  and  must  stand  their  trial  by 
public  opinion." 

In  the  progress  of  our  foreign  statesmanship  a 
real  turning-point  had  now  been  reached.  Something 
like  the  same  choice  between  two  ways  had  presented 
itself  to  the  eighteenth-century  directors  of  our  foreign 
affairs.  Bolingbroke  and  Walpole,  while  differing  on 
almost  every  other  subject,  were  equally  against  a 
policy  of  intervention  except  under  absolute  compulsion 
and  for  maintaining  some  material  interest.  Pitt  had 
been  driven  into  war  by  France,  but  always  held  with 
the  principle  that  his  enemy's  domestic  affairs  were  not 
his  concern.  From  1807  to  1809,  Canning  had 
followed  the  traditional  line  of  English  policy  when 
refusing  to  interfere  in  the  domestic  affairs  of  Portugal 
or  to  offer  any  advice  to  the  Portuguese  regency  in 
its  relation  with  the  local  juntas.  "  We  Englishmen," 
were  Canning's  words,  "may  carry  in  our  bosoms  the 
image  of  our  Constitution.  We  should  not,  however, 

therefore   expect   to   see   it   reflected  in   every  other 

250 


The   Beginnings  of  Non-Intervention 

country."  Canning's  personal  acquaintance  with  Por- 
tugal had  begun  when  he  went  to  Lisbon  as  ambassador. 
His  official  connection  with  that  state  grew  eight  years 
later  out  of  its  relations  with  Brazil.  During  the  resid- 
ence of  the  court  of  Lisbon  at  Rio,  the  colony  had 
eclipsed  the  mother  country  in  importance  and  pros- 
perity. When  the  King  of  Portugal  had  in  1821 
returned  to  his  European  capital,  his  Brazilian  subjects 
declared  themselves  an  independent  nation  under  his 
son,  Don  Pedro,  as  their  emperor.  On  reassuming  the 
Foreign  Secretaryship  in  1822,  Canning  told  his  Portu- 
guese friends  that  Brazilian  independence  must  be 
taken  for  an  accomplished  fact,  but  proceeded  to  act  as 
mediator  between  the  disputants.  Eventually,  through 
Charles  Stuart  (Lord  Stuart  of  Rothesay),  his  envoy, 
Canning  arranged  the  difficulty  between  Lisbon  and 
Rio,  and  secured  the  acceptance  by  each  of  terms  regu- 
lating their  intercourse  ;  taking  up  the  subject  touched 
by  Castlereagh  at  Vienna,  he  secured  from  Brazil,  and 
all  Portugal's  American  colonies,  a  promise  to  abolish 
the  slave-trade. 

Canning's  diplomatic  residence  in  Portugal,  and 
his  mediatorial  offices  between  it  and  Brazil,  already 
described,  were  the  appropriate  precursors  of  his 
succession  to  Castlereagh  as  Foreign  Secretary  in 
1822.  Thus,  in  Canning's  second  and  longer  term 
at  the  Foreign  Office,  Portugal  took  up  almost  as 
much  of  his  attention  as,  during  the  Secretary- 
ship of  State  that  had  begun  in  1807,  was  given  to 
Napoleon.  Canning  also  it  was  who  had  arranged 
with  Count  Souza  in  London  the  treaty  defining  the 
Anglo- Portuguese  entente  of  1822  maintained  through- 
out this  period.  The  champions  of  Continental  abso- 

251 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

lutism  successively  enabled  Ferdinand  of  Naples  and 
Ferdinand  of  Spain  to  trample  under  foot  the  Constitu- 
tions given  to  their  subjects.  Spain  had  become  the 
headquarters  of  all  that  was  reactionary  in  the  Peninsula. 
Our  ambassador  at  Lisbon  reported  an  impending  attack 
by  the  Spanish  "  apostolicals,"  as  they  were  called,  upon 
the  institutions  of  Portugal.  Not  in  the  capacity  of 
champion  of  political  liberties,  but  in  virtue  of  treaty 
obligations,  Canning,  in  the  December  of  1826,  sent 
English  troops  to  Lisbon  ;  for  the  time  Portugal  was 
secure  against  attack  from  Spain,  or  from  the  French 
forces  by  which  Spain  had  been  overrun.  To  Canning 
as  a  Foreign  Minister  Portugal  owed  much.  He  was 
not  spared  to  witness  the  termination  of  the  domestic 
difficulties  that  had  begun  for  the  country  with  the 
return  in  1821  of  King  John  VI.  from  Brazil.  The 
rivalries  that  distracted  the  Portuguese  court  and  nation 
were  not  composed  till  1834  ;  by  that  time  four  Secre- 
taries of  State  had  received  Canning's  portfolio.  In 
its  dealings  with  Portugal  English  diplomacy  was 
under  a  debt  to  others  than  Secretaries  of  State.  But 
for  our  ambassador  at  Lisbon,  Lord  Strangford,  the 
King  of  Portugal,  in  1808,  would  have  thrown  himself 
into  the  arms  of  France.  Nor  could  the  English 
representative  in  Portugal  have  dispensed  with  help 
which  came  to  him  not  in  the  ordinary  way  of  diplo- 
macy. For  it  was  from  a  Jewish  resident  on  the  Rock, 
Benoliel,  Strangford  had  discovered  Bonaparte's  plot  to 
bribe  some  Irish  captains  in  the  garrison  into  betraying 
to  him  Gibraltar.  A  day  or  two  later  he  arranged  every- 
thing for  the  court's  departure,  with  its  jewels,  archives 
and  insignia,  for  Brazil.  Sir  Sydney  Smith  has  been 

credited  with  effecting  this  splendid    emigration,  but 

252 


The  Beginnings  of  Non-Intervention 

speaking  in  Parliament,  as  early  as  1817,  Canning- 
showed  the  honour  of  the  thing  to  belong  to  Strang- 
ford  alone.  When  he  joined  the  royal  party  in  their 
transatlantic  exile  Strangford  found  fresh  occasions  of 
confirming  John  VI.  in  his  attachment  to  England. 

On  other  matters  interesting  England  scarcely 
less  than  did  Portugal,  and  of  deeper  importance 
to  the  rest  of  Europe,  the  centre  of  diplomatic  gravity 
in  Canning's  day  was  less  at  London  than  at  Vienna. 
Canning,  it  must  be  remembered,  never  withdrew 
England  from  the  Quadruple  Treaty  which  ranged 
the  Allies  against  French  Jacobinism  and  the  working 
of  which  was  chiefly  regulated  at  the  Austrian  capital. 
The  Greek  question  Canning  lived  to  see  assured 
of  settlement  on  his  own  lines.  The  fortunes  of 
another  classical  country,  Italy,  also  occupied  him 
during  these  years  ;  the  cause  of  this  was  a  secret 
treaty  with  Austria,  signed  by  King  Ferdinand  of 
Naples.  That  clandestine  compact  violated  not  only 
the  Treaty  of  Paris,  but  a  resolution  of  the  Vienna 
Congress.  At  Vienna — with  England's  approval,  if 
not  on  her  initiative — it  had  been  resolved  that,  outside 
the  Austrian  possessions,  Italy  should  consist  of 
independent  states.  Metternich  secretly  had,  indeed 
even  at  the  congress,  aimed  at  an  Austrian  pro- 
tectorate over  the  whole  peninsula.  He  had,  however, 
uttered  no  word  on  the  subject,  and  afterwards  saw 
that  Italy  might  cease  to  be  the  geographical  ex- 
pression he  had  described  it  as  being,  unless  her 
petty  rulers  were  maintained  only  as  satellites  of  the 
Austrian  system.  As  against  France,  the  European 
concert  was  in  1822  complete.  On  other  points  the 
conflict  between  Austrian  autocracy  and  British 

253 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

liberalism,  if  often  veiled  in  Castlereagh's  time,  was 
sometimes  acute  in  his  day  as  well  as  in  that  of 
Canning.  Here  is  an  instance  of  the  collision : 
England  had  acquiesced  in  the  establishment  of 
Ferdinand  upon  the  throne  of  Naples  and  Sicily. 
The  British  representative,  Lord  William  Bentinck, 
had  compelled  King  Ferdinand  to  grant  his  subjects 
a  Constitution  after  the  English  model.  Not  only  did 
Austria  use  her  influence  to  subvert  the  new  regime, 
Castlereagh  let  Metternich  know  that  privately  he 
agreed  with  him,  and  that  he  felt  sure  of  its  being 
better  generally  to  retard  than  to  hasten  the  operation 
of  this  most  hazardous  principle  (that  of  liberty)  which 
is  now  abroad.  Not  of  course  that  Castlereagh  liked 
oppression,  or  proposed  any  other  final  end  of  his 
foreign  policy  than  freedom  ;  but  the  first  article  in 
his  faith,  inherited  from  Pitt  himself,  was  the  necessity 
of  an  Austrian  alliance  as  a  counterpoise  to  France. 
What  greater  madness  could  there  be  than  to  risk  or 
compromise  that  connection  for  the  sake  of  emanci- 
pating a  people  not  yet  certainly  ripe  for  independ- 


ence ? 


The  Troppau  and  Laybach  congresses  of  1820 
1821  formed  the  occasion  of  Castlereagh's  most 
serious  mistake.  The  object  and  date  of  these 
meetings  was  communicated  not  too  courteously  to 
the  London  Foreign  Office.  Instead  of  simply  in- 
timating the  impossibility  of  England's  taking  part 
in  them,  he  added  the  confession  that  the  British 
Government  highly  disapproved  the  popular  move- 
ment which  had  given  Austria  the  trouble  of  restoring 
Ferdinand  to  his  throne.  While  he  had  acted  as 

plenipotentiary  at  Vienna,    Parliament  had  not  been 

254 


The   Beginnings  of  Non-intervention 

sitting.  Since  then  his  policy  had  been  severely 
criticised  at  Westminster.  His  attitude  to  the  de- 
liberations of  the  East  European  monarchs  might 
have  brought  about  his  resignation,  had  not  his  own 
hand  ended  his  life  in  the  next  year. 

Castlereagh,  in  1816,  had  become  Marquis  of  Lon- 
donderry ;  he  was  at  the  time  of  his  death  expected 
to  take  part  in  the  Verona  Congress,  whose  meeting 
began  at  Vienna  (September  1822).     His  place  at  it 
was  filled  by  the  one  man  whose  views  on  the  whole 
most  resembled  his  own,  and  whose  opposition   most 
hampered  Canning — the  Duke  of  Wellington.     Mean- 
while,   for  the   first   time   in   the  history  of  that  de- 
partment, public   opinion  had  indicated  the  new  and 
only   possible   head   of    the    Foreign    Office.     In    a 
different  capacity,  the  elder  Pitt  had  not  been  more 
undoubtedly  and  imperatively  the  choice  of  the  nation 
in    1757,    than   was    Canning   when   he   returned    to 
Downing    Street   in    1822.     During   that   year   were 
happening  events  which  proved  the  international  legis- 
lators  of   1815    at    Vienna   to    have    failed   not   less 
signally   as   permanent  peacemakers,  than   had  been 
done    by    the    Eastern    monarchs    who    stiffened    at 
Troppau  and  Laybach  the  edicts  of  Aix-la-Chapelle. 
The  impulse  of  nationality  had  proved  contagious. 
In  Spain,  Ferdinand  VII.  had  weakly  yielded  to  the 
demands  of  his  people  for   a  constitutional  and  re- 
presentative   system.     After    much   deliberation,    the 
Powers  who  had  been  instrumental  in  its  restoration 
entertained  the  Bourbon  plea  of  being  threatened  by 
the  popular    institutions    of    a    neighbour    separated 
from    it   only  by   the    Pyrenees.      The   new    monar- 
chical   and    reactionary    France    had    from    the    first 

255 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

meditated  putting  down  by  arms  the  rising  liber- 
alism of  Madrid.  Poland  had  been  originally  en- 
couraged by  the  Czar  Alexander ;  she  was  now 
clamouring  for  independence.  Finally,  Greece  had 
begun  to  break  the  bonds  which  held  her  to 
Turkey.  Evidently  therefore  it  had  become  neces- 
sary thoroughly  to  do  what  the  delegates  at  the 
Austrian  capital  seven  years  earlier  had  begun  rather 
than  finished.  The  Duke  of  Wellington  distrusted 
Canning  as  a  crypto-liberal,  and  despised  him  as 
a  social  upstart.  He  lost  no  time,  however,  in 
making  the  new  Foreign  Secretary  aware  of  his 
willingness  to  go  to  Verona.  The  Spanish  question, 
added  the  Duke,  in  some  shape  or  other  must  certainly 
come  up  for  consideration.  What  were  to  be  the 
instructions  ?  Canning's  reply  may  be  the  charter  of 
the  non-intervention  policy  which  in  1832  had  been 
wittily  described  by  Talleyrand  ;*  it  did  not  substantially 
differ  from  the  memorandum  drawn  up  for  his  own 
guidance  by  Castlereagh  when  he  had  thought  of 
representing  England  on  the  occasion.  England 
would  be  no  party  to  coercing  or  threatening  Spain. 
Canning's  instructions  to  Wellington  stated  the  whole 
of  his  policy  in  the  Peninsula.  So  strong  had  been 
the  pressure  of  the  French  Government,  that  the 
King  of  Spain  had  revoked  no  liberties  given  by  him 
to  his  people.  The  revolution  following  this  step  was 
put  down  by  French  assistance.  Portugal,  however, 
our  old  ally,  had  profited  by  British  support  to  retain 
her  free  institutions.  All  Canning's  advices  from 
abroad  went  to  show  that  French  Bourbonism  would 

*  "  C'est  un  mot  mdtaphisique  et  politique  qui  signifie  a  peu  pres  la 
meme  chose  qu'intervention." 

256 


The  Beginnings  of  Non-Intervention 

not  be  satisfied  till  it  had  silenced  the  popular  voice 
in  Portugal  as  well  as  in  Spain.  He  therefore  made 
a  memorable  declaration  in  Parliament.  If,  he  let 
it  be  known,  of  her  own  accord  Portugal  were  to 
make  war  against  France,  England  would  be  neutral. 
If,  however,  Ferdinand  VII.  were  to  solicit  or  accept 
the  help  of  Louis  XVIII.  in  coercing  Portugal, 
England  would  at  once  take  up  arms  on  behalf  of 
her  ancient  ally ;  already  there  existed  a  Franco- 
Spanish  arrangement,  which  the  British  minister  was 
determined  to  thwart.  At  the  same  time,  straining 
every  nerve  to  prevent  a  regular  war  between  royalist 
France  and  republican  Spain,  he  implored  his  liberal 
supporters  at  home  to  restrain  rather  than  stimulate 
the  Spanish  parliamentarians,  who  now  had  their  king 
in  their  power. 

The  colonies  of  Spain  across  the  Atlantic  were 
at  this  time  in  full  revolt.  France,  like  for  that 
matter  Austria  and  Russia,  wished  to  assist  Spain 
in  re-conquering  the  dependencies  that  had  long 
gradually  been  slipping  away  from  her.  The 
French  reward  for  these  services  was  to  be  a  sub- 
stantial share  of  Spain's  transatlantic  possessions. 
Canning  did  not  dispute  the  right  of  Spain  to  reduce 
to  subjection  her  insubordinate  dominions.  If  how- 
ever, they  were  to  be  regained  only  to  become  French 
property,  England  would  at  once  help  them  to  make 
good  their  efforts  at  independence.  The  spirit  and 
features  of  Bourbon  diplomacy  still  remained  much 
what  they  were  when,  more  than  half  a  century 
earlier,  the  Family  Compact  had  been  baffled  by 
Chatham.  Canning  was  not  less  successful  in  check- 
mating the  scheme  concocted  by  the  two  branches  of 
R  257 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

the  "  house."     The  whole  episode  cannot  be  summed 
up   better   than    in    Canning's   own  famous  words - 
"  I    have  called  in  the    New  World    to    redress    the 
balance  of  the  Old."     Nor  did  that  achievement  stand 
by  itself. 

Canning  not  only  secured  for  England  the  support 
of  the  United  States,  he  practically  inspired  the  most 
famous  message  to  Congress  ever  delivered  by  the 
first  magistrate  of  the  Western  Republic.  The  Monroe 
Doctrine,  formulated  by  the  United  States  president, 
2nd  December  1823,  did  but  embody  the  principle  of 
the  Foreign  Secretary's  ultimatum  to  the  aggressive 
pretensions  of  French  and  Spanish  legitimacy. 
Canning's  declaration  had  in  it  nothing  of  menace  to 
the  courts  of  Paris  or  Madrid.  James  Monroe  would 
have  disclaimed  any  intention  of  interfering  with  Great 
Britain  in  Canada  or  with  the  Portuguese  Emperor  of 
Brazil ;  he  merely  warned  those  whom  it  might  con- 
cern that  his  Government  would  not  allow  Americans 
who  had  shaken  off  a  foreign  sway  to  be  brought  back 
to  a  state  of  dependence,  or  to  be  disposed  of  and 
overwhelmed  by  European  owners  whom  they  had 
dispossessed.  The  cost  of  disregarding  the  true  moral 
of  the  Monroe  message  forty  years  after  its  delivery 
was  paid  by  Napoleon  III.  and  the  luckless  victim 
of  his  ill-starred  project,  Maximilian.  In  another  way 
Canning  seems  to  have  averted  a  world-wide  crisis 
more  serious  than  was  generally  suspected  at  the  time. 
During  his  communications  with  the  American  minister 
in  London,  Rush,  it  clearly  came  out  that  the  monarchy 
of  Louis  XVIII.  had  been  offered,  and  desired  to 
accept,  a  commission  from  Spain  for  conquering  the 

whole   of  South  America.     Alone   among    European 

258 


The  Beginnings  of  Non-intervention 

statesmen,  Canning  denounced  the  project ;  it  would 
not  have  been  abandoned  as  it  was,  had  his  attitude 
with  the  French  ambassador  in  London,  Polignac, 
been  less  firm. 

The  impossibility  of  English  co-operation  in  any 
scheme  of  Continental  coercion  had  been  dwelt 
upon  by  the  London  Foreign  Office  under  Castlereagh 
as  it  was  under  Canning.  The  charge  against  the 
former  minister  is  not  that  he  failed  to  understand  or 
even  to  emphasise  England's  resolution  to  follow  the 
line  of  non-intervention ;  by  his  public  declarations 
he  had  made  that  policy  his  own.  This,  however, 
was  only  to  throw,  as  Brougham  said,  dust  in  the 
eyes  of  the  House  of  Commons  ;  for  at  the  same  time 
he,  like  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  did  not  disguise 
his  sympathies  with  the  absolutism  of  the  Holy 
Alliance,  and  privately  encouraged  the  Imperial  Allies 
in  their  campaign  against  popular  liberties.  On 
accepting  the  mission  to  the  Verona  Congress  in 
September  1822,  the  Duke  of  Wellington  thought  the 
first  place  in  the  discussion  would  be  occupied  by  the 
insurrection  in  Greece.  Here  English  diplomacy 
found  itself  in  a  position  beset  by  difficulties  and 
anomalies.  Russia  was  then  England's  chief  diplomatic 
rival  in  the  Near  East;  the  maintenance  therefore 
of  Turkish  rather  than  of  Russian  influence  had 
become  a  tradition  of  British  policy.  With  a  view, 
as  was  said,  of  establishing  himself  at  Constantin- 
ople and  of  making  the  Black  Sea  a  Russian  lake,  the 
Czar  did  violence  to  his  autocratic  and  legitimist  con- 
victions by  encouraging  the  attempt  of  the  Forte's 
Hellenic  subjects  to  cast  off  the  Turkish  yoke.  In 

England     the    Philhellenic     sentiment    had    aroused 

259 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

strong  indignation  against  Austria  for  encouraging 
the  Sultan  to  deal  with  the  Greek  patriots  as  with 
common  rebels  ;  Canning  also  shared  a  scholar's  pre- 
judices in  favour  of  the  independence  of  a  classical 
and  interesting  land.  Nor  had  he  anything  but  scorn 
for  the  feeling  in  favour  of  Mohammedan  rule,  because 
the  Turk,  though  a  tyrant,  was  a  gentlemanly  one. 
On  the  Greek  question,  therefore,  English  diplomacy 
had  before  itself  a  twofold  task.  It  had  to  prevent,  on 
the  one  hand,  the  provisional  government  in  Greece, 
and  the  aspirations  centred  in  it,  from  being  crushed  ; 
on  the  other  it  had  to  guard  Turkey  against  Russian 
encroachment.  The  Congress  of  1822 — which,  as 
already  said,  having  first  been  convened  at  Vienna, 
had  been  moved  to  Verona  and  took  its  name  from  that 
place — settled  nothing.  It  was  followed  by  meetings 
of  ambassadors  at  St  Petersburg  first,  in  London  after- 
wards. These  gatherings  would  have  been  memor- 
able if  for  no  other  reason  than  that  they  witnessed 
the  official  ddbut  of  the  English  minister's  cousin, 
Sir  Stratford  Canning,  afterwards  known  as  the  great 
Eltchi  of  the  Crimean  War  period  (Lord  Stratford  de 
Redcliffe).  Canning's  famous  Parliamentary  declara- 
tion on  the  subject  has  been  mentioned  above  ;  by  it  he 
denied  the  right  of  the  Powers  to  interfere  between 
Spain  and  her  revolted  South  American  colonies. 
That  denial  was  emphasised  when  in  the  autumn  of 
1823  he  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  a  conference 
on  the  subject  held  in  Paris.  In  the  following  winter 
he  declined  a  like  offer  from  Russia  to  assist  at  a 
similar  assemblage  for  settling  the  affairs  of  Greece. 
This  was  shortly  after  the  Austrian  and  Russian 

emperors     had      conferred      upon      the     subject     at 

260 


The  Beginnings  of  Non-  Intervention 

Czernowitz.  Neither  potentate  personally  had  any 
Philhellenic  sentiments.  Even  now  the  Czar  moved 
unwillingly  and  under  strong  domestic  pressure. 
Metternich  and  Nesselrode  drew  up  a  memorandum 
which  was  sent  to  Canning  in  London.  Nothing,  was 
the  English  minister's  decision,  could  come  from  a 
discussion  of  this  paper.  He  would,  however,  cause 
England  to  be  represented  at  any  conference  held  on 
certain  conditions  he  now  stated  ;  of  these  the  first 
was  that  Russia  should  practically  show  herself  a 
friendly  Power  by  re-establishing  her  mission  at 
Constantinople.  The  matter  seemed  likely  to  arrange 
itself  through  Sir  Charles  Bagot  and  Lord  Strangford — 
accredited  from  England  respectively  to  the  Russian 
and  Turkish  capitals.  The  Czar  still  delayed  sending 
an  ambassador  to  the  Porte ;  Turkey  pleaded  her 
consequent  absolution  from  all  promises  about 
Greece.  Nevertheless,  1825  was  not  to  end  without 
witnessing  Canning's  diplomatic  master-stroke.  In 
November  the  London  Foreign  Office  received  a 
confession  from  the  ambassadors  of  the  Great  Powers 
that  England  alone  could  help  them  out  of  the  diffi- 
culty. At  an  earlier  stage  of  these  negotiations 
Canning  had  sent  the  Duke  of  Wellington  to  St 
Petersburg  to  assist  in  preparing  what  came  to  be 
known  as  the  Russian  or  St  Petersburg  protocol.  He 
had,  in  fact,  from  the  first,  desired  to  accept  if  possible 
the  Czar's  suggestions  as  a  basis  for  arranging  this 
international  business.  For  some  time,  on  the  plea  of 
having  no  interest  in  the  Eastern  question,  Prussia 
had  withdrawn  from  the  negotiations  ;  Austria,  influ- 
enced by  Metternich,  who  loathed  everything  Hellenic, 

sulked.     The   sole   parties   to  the   arrangement  were 

261 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

thus,  England,  Russia  and  Turkey.    At  last  the  matter 
lay  exclusively  between  Canning  and  Nesselrode. 

During  this  period  the  Russian  ambassador  in 
London  was  Prince  Lieven  ;  the  Princess  Lieven's  salon 
was  a  political  power  in  its  way,  as  well  as  a  fashionable 
resort ;  Canning,  Aberdeen,  Grey,  Metternich  and 
George  IV.  all  regularly  attended  her  receptions.  The 
English  king  piqued  himself  on  his  epistolary  criticisms 
of  his  minister's  statesmanship ;  his  letters  about 
diplomacy  had  often  tried  Canning's  patience.  By  her 
bright  and  tactful  badinage  the  Princess  Lieven  laughed 
the  royal  censor  out  of  thus  parading  the  facility  of 
his  pen.  Certainly  the  conciliatory  influences  of  the 
Princess's  parties  softened  down  more  than  one 
difficulty  in  the  way  of  converting  the  St  Petersburg 
protocol  of  April  1826  into  the  Treaty  of  London 
(July  1827).  Thus  did  a  lady's  drawing-room  help 
the  Foreign  Office  to  create  the  new  Hellenic 
kingdom. 

This  was  the  last  diplomatic  business  conducted  by 
Canning.  On  3Oth  April  1827  he  had  become  Prime 
Minister ;  on  the  8th  of  August  he  died,  from  the 
effects  of  a  chill  caught  at  the  Duke  of  York's  funeral. 
But  for  an  act  of  courtesy  to  one  who,  though  his 
acquaintance,  was  scarcely  his  well-wisher,  Canning's 
life  might  have  been  spared.  At  the  funeral  in  St 
George's  chapel,  Canning  observed  the  Duke  of 
Wellington,  who  stood  next  him,  to  suffer  from  the 
coldness  of  the  stones  on  which  they  were  standing  ;  he 
at  once  placed  beneath  the  duke's  feet  his  own  court 
hat,  which  he  had  been  about  to  use  as  a  mat  for 
himself. 

In  the  portrait  gallery  of  English  Foreign  Secre- 

262 


The   Beginnings  of  Non-intervention 

taries,  the  commanding  place  filled  by  Canning  is  due 
not  only  to  the  actual  work  he  accomplished,  but 
to  his  freedom  from  the  prejudices  of  his  class  and 
his  craft.  Austria,  Austrian  ideas  and  ways  were 
then  the  idols  of  English  Society,  and  especially  of  the 
set  which  Canning,  after  his  youth,  knew  best ;  by 
daring  to  be  independent  of  the  modes  in  fashion  at 
Vienna  he  made  Metternich  his  enemy,  but  he  carried 
out  much  in  which  his  predecessors  had  failed ;  he 
illuminated  the  British  name,  and  for  thousands  of  his 
countrymen  for  whom  the  subject  had  no  interest 
before,  he  invested  the  records  of  international  states- 
manship with  a  living  and  personal  charm.  In  his 
diplomatic  methods  he  reflected  the  practical  common- 
sense  of  his  country  ;  he  had  as  little  liking  in  the 
abstract  as  had  Pitt  for  Russian  idiosyncrasies  and 
Russian  doings.  Distrust  of  Russia  had  indeed  now 
become  a  tradition  of  Tory  diplomacy  ;  that  did  not 
prevent  his  making  a  wise  use  of  the  materials  at  hand 
in  his  dealings  with  Greece ;  amongst  such  materials 
was  the  Russian  co-operation.  No  taunts  prevented 
him  from  using  the  leverage  which  it  supplied. 


263 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE    CANNING    TRADITION 

Lord  Dudley's  policy  in  favour  of  Greece — The  battle  of  Navarino — 
Divided  opinions  of  the  Ministry  —  Resignation  of  the 
Canningites — The  third  Earl  of  Aberdeen — His  non-interven- 
tion policy — The  Treaty  of  Adrianople — Canning's  policy 
continued  with  regard  to  Russia  and  Portugal — Lord 
Aberdeen  and  France — The  Conference  of  London  (1830-1) — 
The  independence  of  Belgium — Lord  Palmerston  at  the 
Foreign  Office — The  Eastern  Question — The  subjection  of 
Mehemet  AH — Friendship  between  Aberdeen  and  Guizot — 
The  Tahiti  affair — Anti-English  feeling  in  France — Peaceful 
policy  of  Aberdeen  and  Guizot — The  Greek  Question — The 
Anglo-American  dispute — The  Ashburton  treaty — The  Spanish 
Marriages — Queen  Victoria  and  Louis  Philippe — Relations 
between  France,  Spain  and  England,  1835  to  1846. 

;P  H  E  death  of  Canning  alone  ended  his  difficulties 
JL  with  the  Duke  of  Wellington  ;  he  lived,  how- 
ever, long  enough  to  satisfy  the  court  with  the  Cabinet 
formed  by  him  in  1827.  George  IV.  had  nothing  to 
say  against  Canning's  choice  of  Lord  Dudley  for 
the  Foreign  Office,  though  he  foresaw  that  the 
Chancellor  of  the  Duchy,  Lord  Aberdeen,  would 
ultimately  become  the  head  of  the  department. 
Lord  Dudley  combined  an  inveterate  optimism  with 
some  eccentricity  ;  always  one  of  the  wealthiest  peers 
in  England,  he  had  lately  received  almost  fabulous 
revenues  from  his  collieries  ;  two  or  three  years  before 

he  became  Foreign   Minister,   he  had  described  the 

264 


The  Canning  Tradition 

new  prosperity  as  extending  to  all  orders,  all  pro- 
fessions, all  districts,  as  enhanced  and  invigorated 
by  those  arts  which  minister  to  human  comfort,  as 
well  as  by  those  inventions  which  seem  to  have  given 
man  the  mastery  over  human  nature.  The  personal 
characteristics  of  the  man  who  followed  Canning  in  his 
department  were  extraordinary  absence  of  mind  and  a 
habit  of  chinking  the  sovereigns  in  his  pocket  while 
muttering  to  himself.  Hence  the  wits  of  the  period  in 
Paris,  where  he  was  as  well  known  as  in  London, 
spoke  of  the  appointment  as  specially  appropriate 
because  "  ses  affaires  lui  ont  £te  toujours  dtr anger es" 
The  delight  of  the  new  Foreign  Minister  at  his  pro- 
motion was  unbounded  ;  he  would,  it  was  truly  said  of 
him,  willingly  have  given  ^6000  a  year  for  his  office 
instead  of  receiving  that  sum  from  the  public.  No 
member,  therefore,  of  the  administration  laboured  so 
hard  to  patch  up  the  differences  between  the  Duke 
and  Huskisson  which  threatened  to  wreck  the 
Cabinet.  On  foreign  affairs  Dudley  outdid  Canning 
in  his  dislike  of  the  Sultan  and  his  people.  To  such  a 
point  did  he  carry  his  anti-Turkish  sentiments,  that 
his  social  influence  was  actively  used  to  ostracise  the 
English  partisans  of  the  Porte  from  drawing-room  and 
club.  "If,"  he  said,  "three  Christian  sovereigns 
could  divide  Christian  Poland  without  interference 
from  England,  her  safety  cannot  surely  be  bound  up 
with  a  barbarous  Mohammedan  despotism.  Rather 
should  it  be  our  policy  so  to  direct  any  new  arrange- 
ment consequent  on  the  Ottoman  downfall  as  to 
prevent  it  from  turning  too  much  to  the  profit  of 
Russia,  too  little  to  that  of  Greece." 

The     Goderich     administration,     which    retained 

265 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

Dudley  as  Foreign  Secretary  after  Canning  s  death, 
did  not,  it  will  thus  be  seen,  contemplate  executing  the 
Treaty  of  London  in  a  manner  less  favourable  to  Greece 
than  did  Canning  himself.  Thus,  under  dissimilar 
but  mainly  Tory  dispensations,  was  English  diplomacy 
brought  round  to  the  support  of  oppressed  nationalities. 
Thus  for  the  time  did  Tory  diplomacy  break  with 
the  principle  of  antagonism  to  Russia,  stamped  though 
it  was  declared  to  be  by  the  high  authority  of 
the  second  Pitt.  The  secret  articles  of  the  London 
treaty  arranged  for  an  armistice  between  Greece  and 
Turkey ;  the  efforts  to  secure  this  involved  the  entire 
destruction  of  the  Turkish  and  Egyptian  fleets  at 
Navarino.  That  incident  was  spoken  of  in  widely 
different  language  by  the  rival  party  leaders  of  the 
time.  The  Duke  of  Wellington  talked  of  unprovoked 
outrage  and  suggested  apology ;  he  had,  he  said, 
always  disliked  the  Treaty  of  London  ;  he  protested 
against  the  idea  of  its  having  any  connection  with 
his  own  St  Petersburg  protocol.  The  foreign  policy 
that  had  culminated  in  the  Navarino  incident,  not  only 
hastened  the  dissolution  of  the  Goderich  Government, 
but  threatened  to  prevent  the  formation  of  the 
Wellington  Cabinet  which  followed  it. 

The  Foreign  Secretary,  whom  so  many  had  refused  to 
take  quite  seriously,  alone  kept  the  Duke's  men  together. 
Had  Dudley  gone  out,  Huskisson  and  the  Moderates 
would  have  followed  him.  The  Greco-Turkish  question 
had  split  the  whole  heterogeneous  ministerial  con- 
nection. To  the  Duke  himself  it  was  a  shabby  trick. 
His  tepid  retainers  saw  in  it  no  more  than  a  regrettable 
incident.  On  the  other  hand  the  Whig  leaders,  Althorp 

and  Russell,  whom  the  new  ministers  wished  to  con- 

266 


The  Canning  Tradition 

ciliate,  spoke  of  it  as  a  necessary  consequence  of  the 
Treaty  of  London,  and  as  honest  a  victory  as  had  ever 
been  gained  since  the  beginning  of  the  world.  The 
Porte  now  demanded  of  England  an  indemnity  for  the 
destruction  of  its  fleet,  and  the  withdrawal  of  the 
Powers  from  intervention  in  Greece.  Dudley  referred 
the  Turkish  ambassador  to  the  Treaty  of  London  ; 
he  further  pointed  out  that  the  recent  action  at  sea 
had  been  begun  by  the  Turks  themselves.  Dudley's 
official  methods  may  have  been  as  procrastinating  and 
as  confused  as  some  critics  have  said.  He  cannot  be 
charged  with  lack  of  clearness  in  deciding  on  a  policy 
or  of  strength  in  carrying  it  out.  His  resignation  in 
1828  was  due  to  no  failure,  but  to  the  impossibility  of 
lasting  co-operation  between  the  Canningites  and  the 
Tories.  So  far  Foreign  Office  influence  had  been  the 
cement  that  kept  the  ministers  together.  When  that 
lost  its  cohesive  power,  Dudley  resigned,  together  with 
Huskisson,  whom  he  had  so  often  kept  from  retiring 
before. 

As  Chancellor  of  the  Duchy  of  Lancaster,  the 
fourth  Earl  of  Aberdeen  had  already  done  a  good  deal 
of  Foreign  Office  work,  and  was  a  Scotch  Tory  after 
the  Duke  of  Wellington's  heart.  Beginning  public  life 
in  diplomacy,  he  had,  as  ambassador  at  Vienna  in  1813, 
won  over  Austria  to  the  Treaty  of  Toplitz  which 
secured  the  independence  of  the  small  Rhenish  states. 
Being,  a  year  later,  on  duty  at  the  Congress  of 
Chatillon,  he  employed  his  experience  of  private 
theatricals  to  delight  the  evenings  of  the  cosmopolitan 
company.  More  lately  he  had  taken  part  in  the 
Greek  negotiations.  He  now  brought  to  the  control 

of  the  department  not  only  the  serious  shrewdness  of 

267 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

the  Scot,  but  a  matured  and  accurate  insight  into  the 
dark  places  of  European  diplomacy.  No  one  was 
more  at  home  behind  the  diplomatic  scenes  in  Vienna, 
or  had  given  Castlereagh  sounder  advice  about 
Austrian  aims  and  ideas.  "  Metternich,"  said  Aberdeen, 
"  is  singularly  acute,  but  withal  not  a  very  clever 
man,  very  vain,  always  Austrian,  and  predisposed  for 
war  if  the  risk  to  his  country  be  not  too  great." 

The  last  Lord  Rokeby  died  in  1883.  On  one  of 
the  frequent  occasions  of  my  meeting  him,  while  Mr 
Spencer  Montague,  he  gave  me  many  interesting 
details  about  the  Princess  Lieven's  evening  parties,  at 
which  the  Lord  Rokeby  of  that  time  met  weekly  the 
leading  diplomatists,  English  and  Continental,  of  the 
period.  From  this  ancestor's  unpublished  papers  the 
Lord  Rokeby  of  whom  I  knew  something  vividly 
described  ''the  international  set  presided  over  by  the 
fourth  Lord  Aberdeen.  Metternich  belonged  to  it  and 
showed  himself  there  exactly  as  he  was.  Not  (wrote 
Rokeby)  the  Machiavellian  genius  some  have  described 
him,  but  the  pleasantest  and  most  equal-tempered  man  I 
ever  knew.  He  never  lost  his  temper  in  his  life  nor 
had  a  mean  thought  or  said  a  mean  word  about  anyone. 
But  he  wanted  pace."  The  schoolfellow,  at  Harrow,  of 
Byron,  the  "travelled  thane,  Athenian  Aberdeen,"  now 
showed  himself  much  stronger  for  non-intervention  than 
for  the  Hellenic  cause.  "  Tear  up  the  Treaty  of  Lon- 
don," was  his  advice  to  the  Cabinet.  This  was  Welling- 
tonian  Toryism  with  a  vengeance,  utterly  impracticable, 
of  course,  because  it  would  have  undone  the  work  labo- 
riously completed  by  the  Foreign  Office  under  three 
successive  chiefs,  because  Russia,  then  thoroughly  on 

the   alert,    would   at   once  have  put   her   foot   down. 

268 


The  Canning  Tradition 

Moreover,  it  would  have  not  only  destroyed  the 
results  of  the  European  alliance,  but  have  combined 
the  Powers  against  an  isolated  England.  Wellington, 
however,  was  for  limiting  the  new  Greek  kingdom  to 
the  Morea,  to  a  few  islands,  for  exacting  the  pay- 
ment of  a  large  indemnity  at  once,  and  a  heavy 
annual  tribute  afterwards  from  Greece  to  the  Sultan. 
This  was  too  much  even  for  the  Duke's  particular 
Cabinet  ally.  The  Foreign  Secretary,  in  fact,  himself 
at  once  negatived  the  Prime  Minister's  proposal.  At 
the  time  of  Aberdeen's  entering  upon  office,  Russia 
and  Turkey  were  at  war  about  Greece  ;  the  Greek 
insurgents  held  the  Morea ;  the  Powers  who  had 
signed  the  Treaty  of  London  were  preventing  the 
return  of  Turkish  troops  to  Hellenic  soil.  In  the  Op- 
position, Lord  John  Russell  illustrated  the  eighteenth- 
century  anti-Turkish  tradition  of  the  Whig  leader, 
Charles  Fox  ;  for  he  had  denounced  the  Turk,  though 
in  language  less  severe  than  had  been  used  by  ministers 
themselves,  and  particularly  by  the  Secretary  at  War, 
the  Turcophil  of  the  Victorian  age,  The  Palmerston  of 
1827  plainly  asked  in  the  Cabinet,  and  through  his 
organs  in  the  press,  why  the  Turks  should  be  kept  at 
Constantinople. 

As  Prime  Minister  in  1853,  Aberdeen  was  to  be 
charged  with  slackness  in  the  Crimean  War  with 
Russia.  As  Foreign  Secretary  in  1828,  he  was  taunted 
with  the  patrician  prejudices,  causing  him  to  sympathise 
with  Russian  or  even  Turkish  absolutism  rather  than 
with  the  Greeks  struggling  to  be  free.  Aberdeen  has 
been  censured  for  not  uniting  with  Austria  to  prevent 
the  settlement  of  the  Russo-Turkish  War  which 

(i4th  September  1829),  while  slightly  increasing  the 

269 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

Czar's  Asiatic  dominions  gave  Russia  the  protectorate 
of  the  Danubian  provinces.  The  Treaty  of  Adria- 
nople,  however,  gave  the  Czar  much  less  than  he 
had  expected  and  had  long  held  out  for ;  there  was 
no  sign  of  help  coming  to  England  from  Vienna,  even 
if  British  diplomacy  had  averted  the  Adrianople 
arrangement.  Aberdeen's  views  about  Russia  were 
in  general  consistency  with  those  of  Canning,  and,  in 
his  later  years,  of  Pitt.  Towards  Russia,  indeed, 
the  line  taken  by  our  Foreign  Office  was  the  same 
under  Aberdeen  as  it  had  been  under  Dudley.  With 
both  these  ministers  the  English  policy  always  was  to 
prevent  Russia  from  isolated  action  as  the  liberator 
of  any  oppressed  nationalities  whatever.  Aberdeen 
had  no  sooner  become  Foreign  Secretary  than  he  sent 
Lord  Heytesbury  to  our  embassy  at  St  Petersburg, 
with  instructions  showing  his  disbelief  in  Russian 
promises  and  his  apprehension  of  a  Russian  advance. 
Soon  after  the  new  ambassador's  appointment,  Aber- 
deen heard  that  the  Czar  had  directed  the  blockade  of 
the  Dardanelles.  He  at  once  sent  out  word  that  all 
English  ships,  whatever  they  carried,  must  be  outside 
this  operation.  Russia  yielded  ;  the  blockading  orders 
were  cancelled.  A  coolness  was  left  between  the  two 
governments,  and  the  Treaty  of  London  ceased  to  be 
the  subject  of  Anglo-Russian  co-operation.  In  1807, 
as  has  been  seen,  Napoleon  had  resolved  in  no  case 
to  allow  the  Russian  occupation  of  Constantinople. 
Aberdeen  formed  the  same  determination  in  1828  ;  he 
never  afterwards  departed  from  it.  As  regards  the 
Treaty  of  Adrianople,  the  facts  concerning  Aberdeen's 
connection  with  it  are  very  simple.  He  disliked  and 

condemned  its  concessions  to  Russia,  not  less  strongly 

270 


The  Canning  Tradition 

than  had  been  done  by  our  ambassador  at  Constanti- 
nople, Sir  R.  Gordon.  He  accepted  it,  however,  as  a 
necessary  evil,  for  these  reasons.  The  military  exhaus- 
tion of  Turkey  had  become  as  severe  as  that  of  Russia. 
Moreover,  the  struggle  had  produced  effects  so  widely 
disturbing  as  to  revive  the  scare  of  revolution  in  France 
and  elsewhere.  European  diplomacy,  therefore,  with 
Metternich  at  its  head,  disliked  the  Adrianople  terms  ; 
it  insisted  for  political  reasons  on  the  necessity  of 
peace  at  any  price.  The  ultra-Tories,  who  now  blamed 
Aberdeen  for  not  remembering  Oczakow,  logically 
ought  to  have  included  the  foreign  idol  of  Toryism, 
Metternich,  in  their  censures.  For  what  were  the 
facts  ? 

The  Czar  Nicholas,  without  any  protest  from  the 
Continental  Powers,  had  made  war  on  Turkey  for 
alleged  offences  against  himself  and  his  subjects. 
England  alone  dissented  from  the  step  ;  she  became  the 
benefactress  of  Europe  by  not  acknowledging,  and  so 
by  removing,  the  blockade  of  the  Dardanelles.  Like 
some  of  his  diplomatic  contemporaries,  Aberdeen  was 
mistaken  in  anticipating  an  early  collapse  of  the 
Sultan's  European  sovereignty.  Because  he  regarded 
the  Porte,  which  he  had  wished  to  preserve,  as  doomed, 
he  had  gradually  determined,  in  his  own  words,  "to 
make  something  out  of  Greece,  to  establish  it  as  a 
solid  Power,  which  if  necessary  we  may  cordially 
support  in  future." 

In  another  matter  our  foreign  policy  at  the  period 
now  reached,  maintained  its  practical  identity  with 
that  of  Canning.  The  affairs  of  Portugal  were  not 
yet  settled.  In  1830,  Don  Miguel  had  become  so 

popular  in   Portugal   that  he  had   been  requested  to 

271 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

declare  himself  king,  even  without  the  consent  of  the 
Cortes.     Asked   to   intervene   on    behalf    of    Donna 
Maria,   Aberdeen  took  the  course  which  would    cer- 
tainly have  been  that  of  Canning.     To  impose    the 
young  queen  on  the  Peninsula,  and  to  keep  her  there 
by  British  support,  would  be  equally  bad,  he  said,  for 
Portugal,  for  England,  for  the  connection  between  the 
two  countries,  and  for  the  new  Portuguese  Constitution. 
The  relations  between  the  London  and  Paris  Foreign 
Offices  under  Aberdeen  passed  through  some  vicissi- 
tudes.    His  own  sympathies  and  those  of  the  Duke  of 
Wellington  with  reactionary  France  have  been  exag- 
gerated.    But  for  the  days  of  July  which  placed  Louis 
Philippe  on  the  throne  in   1830,  war  between  France 
and  England  could  scarcely  have  been  averted.     In 
the  January  of  that  year    Metternich's   good   offices 
secured  for  Aberdeen  the  sight  of  despatches  from  the 
French  ambassador  at  Constantinople  to  his  govern- 
ment ;  these  documents  showed  the  French  monarchy 
to  be  meditating,   in  concert  with  Mehemet  Ali,  the 
Pasha  of  Egypt,  an  expedition  against  Algiers.     Aber- 
deen lost  not  a  moment  in  letting  France  know  that 
England  would  not  acquiesce  in  any  project  of  per- 
manent conquest  or  aggrandisement.     Our  ambassador 
in  Paris,   Lord   Stuart   of   Rothesay,  alluding  at  this 
time  to  rumours  of  a  possible  revolution,  declared  them 
to  be  utterly  unfounded.     Ten  days  later  the  Bourbon 
monarchy  had  fallen,  and  the  danger  to  England  from 
a    Franco- Egyptian   alliance   was   at   an   end.       The 
change  of  dynasty  was  not  effected  without  the  ex- 
change of  many  communications  between  Paris  and 
London.     English  observers,   amongst  them  perhaps 

Aberdeen,  were  asking  themselves  whether  the  French 

272 


The  Canning  Tradition 

changes  which  had  begun  would  stop  short  of 
an  attempt  at  another  republic.  Lord  Stuart  of 
Rothesay's  advices  from  France  were  reassuring. 
Meanwhile  Charles  X.  looked  for  an  asylum  outside 
his  own  country.  The  dethroned  monarch  had  been 
alarmed  by  rumours  of  his  intended  kidnapping ;  he 
had  applied  to  the  English  Embassy  for  protection, 
perhaps  in  the  shape  of  a  British  man-of-war  to  watch 
the  French  vessel  conveying  him  from  his  kingdom. 

Aberdeen  had  now  to  confront  some  hostility  of 
English  feeling  and  the  actual  opposition  of  his  chief; 
for  the  Duke  of  Wellington  protested  against  recog- 
nising the  deposition  of  Charles  X.  till  the  Allies  of 
1814  had  been  consulted.  Aberdeen  held  his  own 
opinion  ;  eventually  he  brought  round  to  it  not  only 
the  Duke  with  all  his  colleagues,  but  popular  sentiment 
as  well.  Nor,  as  a  fact,  would  the  English  public  have 
tolerated  armed  intervention  to  save  a  monarchy  to 
whose  representative,  whether  Bourbon  or,  as  in  Louis 
Philippe  he  had  now  become,  Orleanist,  they  were 
altogether  indifferent. 

In  England,  diplomacy  had  now  become  national. 
By  a  logic  like  that  with  which  Omar  Pasha  justified 
the  burning  of  the  Alexandrian  library,  Archbishop 
Whately  once  whimsically  argued  the  uselessness 
of  treaties ;  if  they  ceased  to  express  a  national 
conviction,  they  could  not  be  enforced  ;  if  they  did 
express  it,  that  conviction  would  enforce  itself  and 
they  were  superfluous.  At  the  same  time  Charles  X.'s 
appeal  was  at  least  technically  justified  by  the  letter 
not  only  of  the  treaties  of  1814  and  1815,  but  by  the 
international  understanding  sealed  a  few  years  later  at 
Aix-la-Chapelle.  All  those  arrangements  provided 
s  273 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

for  foreign  interference  in  French  affairs  if  the  revolu- 
tion should  reassert  itself.  The  deposition  of  Charles, 
it  might  be  said,  was  caused  by  his  own  unconstitu- 
tional acts ;  but  the  documents  which  the  Powers  had 
signed  said  nothing  about  such  conduct  relieving  them 
of  their  obligations.  The  truth,  of  course,  is  that  the 
Vienna  treaties  and  those  which  followed  them  were 
by  common  consent  lapsing  into  a  dead  letter.  This 
was  a  year  or  two  later  to  be  more  fully  recognised  by 
Lord  Palmerston.  He  as  Lord  Aberdeen's  successor 
began  his  course  as  Foreign  Secretary  under  Earl  Grey, 
November  1830.  The  Aberdeen  despatch  of  1829, 
explaining  to  the  Continental  courts  England's  recog- 
nition of  Louis  Philippe,  contained  the  argument  that 
the  principles  of  Canning  obviously  most  applicable 
to  the  present  time  committed  England  to  a  limi- 
tation rather  than  an  extension  of  her  European 
responsibilities.  As  concerns  our  nearest  Continental 
neighbour,  the  beginnings  of  that  Anglo-French 
entente,  completed  in  the  present  reign,  were  made  by 
Aberdeen  when  refusing  the  appeal  of  Charles  X.,  he 
had  insisted  that  to  entertain  it  would  have  been  to 
charge  the  French  people  with  detestable  and  incredible 
cruelty  and  baseness.  The  same  conciliatory  considera- 
tion of  French  feeling  characterised  his  treatment  of 
the  Belgian  question,  so  far  as  it  can  be  said  to  have 
existed  before  his  retirement  in  1830.  In  that  year  the 
revolutionary  example  of  France  had  been  followed  by 
a  popular  rising  in  Belgium  against  the  connection 
with  Holland.  The  King  of  Holland  had  applied  to 
Aberdeen  for  English  troops  to  protect  him  against  the 
Belgian  insurgents.  The  request  was  refused,  but  as 

Belgium  and  Holland  were  now  practically  at  war  with 

274 


The  Canning  Tradition 

each  other,  English  diplomacy  summoned  the  Powers 
to  a  conference  held  in  London  (1830)  for  considering 
the  whole  subject.  The  arrangement  of  an  armistice 
was  immediately  followed  by  the  discussion  of  the 
plenipotentiaries  under  the  presidency  of  Palmerston, 
who  had  come  in  during  November.  The  conference 
was  a  mere  diplomatic  formality,  held  to  register  a  fore- 
gone conclusion,  the  erection  of  Belgium  into  a  separate 
independent  state.  This  constituted  the  earliest  in- 
timation that  only  by  bayonets  and  cannon  could  the 
Vienna  treaty  be  maintained  as  part  of  the  public  law 
of  Europe. 

In  the  Belgian  affair  Aberdeen  had  shown  great 
skill  in  managing  Louis  Philippe  and  his  chief 
minister  Talleyrand.  Aberdeen's  successor  profited 
by  his  example.  Palmerston  and  Talleyrand,  before 
going  into  the  London  conference,  had  agreed  that 
the  severance  of  Belgium  from  Holland  was  an 
established  and  irreversible  fact.  On  2oth  December 
1830,  the  conference  discussed  the  conditions  on 
which  this  separation  should  be  effected.  The  three 
most  important  questions  to  be  settled  were  the 
exact  territorial  limits  of  the  two  countries,  the 
division  of  the  debt  of  the  United  Netherlands 
kingdom  and  the  choice  of  an  occupant  for  the 
Belgian  throne.  The  conference  held  its  first  sitting 
towards  the  end  of  1830;  on  the  2Oth  and  27th 
of  the  following  January  it  settled  the  territorial 
matter  by  a  compromise :  Holland  retained  all  her 
possessions  of  1790;  Belgium  received  the  remainder. 
Luxemburg,  about  which  there  had  been  much  dis- 
cussion, was  still  to  constitute  part  of  the  Germanic 

confederation.       In    February   the     Dutch    delegates 

275 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

accepted  this  arrangement  without  demur.  The 
difficulties  still  to  be  surmounted  were  raised  by 
Belgium  ;  they  related  chiefly  to  the  future  king  of 
that  country.  The  national  congress  of  Belgium  had 
nominated  and  indeed  gone  through  the  form  of 
electing  Louis  Philippe's  second  son,  the  Due  de 
Nemours,  to  the  throne.  Consulting  Palmerston  on 
the  subject,  Talleyrand  was  plainly  given  to  under- 
stand that  such  a  choice  would  be  regarded  by  Great 
Britain  as  portending  a  union  between  Belgium  and 
France  ;  this  would  disturb  the  balance  of  power,  and 
might  involve  war.  War,  indeed,  as  it  was,  seemed 
already  inevitable.  The  substitution  of  Casimir 
Perier  for  Laffitte  as  French  premier,  with  Sebastiani 
for  his  Foreign  Secretary,  helped  to  avert  the  summary 
close  of  the  conference  and  check  an  appeal  to  arms. 
Eventually  the  choice  fell  on  the  Princess  Charlotte's 
widowed  husband,  Leopold  of  Saxe-Coburg.  He 
persuaded  his  subjects  to  accept  in  the  January  of 
1831  the  eighteen  articles  embodying  the  resolutions 
of  the  Powers ;  he  thus  pacified  his  adopted  country, 
but  did  not  prevent  its  invasion  by  Dutch  troops. 

English  party-differences  now  complicated  the  diffi- 
culties of  diplomacy.  Three  international  experts,  by 
their  timely  appearance  on  the  stage,  helped  to 
compose  the  agitation.  The  first,  Earl  Granville, 
our  ambassador  at  Paris,  a  favourite  of  the  whole  corps 
diplomatique,  adroitly  made  opportunities  of  soothing 
Belgian  susceptibilities  on  the  subject  of  Luxemburg. 
At  this  time,  too,  there  had  recently  come  to  repre- 
sent England  at  Brussels  the  son  of  George  III.'s  staff 
surgeon,  Sir  Robert  Adair.  This  staunch  and  capable 

Whig  had  always  been  so  keen  a  partisan  that  at  the 

276 


The  Canning  Tradition 

age  of  six,  in  the  Wilkes  and  Liberty  riots,  he  suddenly 
left  his  mother,  Lady  Caroline  Keppel,  with  whom  he 
was  sitting,  to  take  part  in  breaking  his  father's 
windows  because  he  was  a  placeman.  He  faced 
much  risk  when,  in  1831,  he  interposed  successfully  to 
prevent  a  collision  between  the  Dutch  and  French 
troops,  being,  in  his  words  to  Coke,  the  old  friend  of 
Charles  Fox,  "  shot  at  once  or  twice  like  a  Holkham 
rabbit."  The  third  diplomatist  who,  as  intermediary, 
promoted  a  settlement,  and  who,  by  his  acceptance 
of  the  Russian  modifications  of  the  treaty,  became 
one  of  the  creators  of  the  new  kingdom,  was  Sylvain 
Van  de  Weyer,  then  a  young  Belgian  remarkable 
for  the  clearness  of  his  head  and  the  charm  of  his 
manners,  well-known  to  society  in  the  last  century 
of  the  representative  of  the  court  of  Brussels  in 
London.  To  these  names  may  be  added  that  of  Lord 
Durham,  who,  as  the  Prime  Minister's  son-in-law  and 
a  Liberal  after  the  Foreign  Secretary's  heart,  had 
been  sent  to  St  Petersburg  to  remove  Russian  pre- 
judice against  the  latest  addition  to  the  monarchies  of 
Western  Europe.  The  Prime  Minister,  Grey,  had 
another  influential  relative  in  diplomacy,  his  brother- 
in-law,  Lord  Ponsonby,  British  charge  d'affaires  at 
Brussels.  Lord  Grey  himself,  it  will  be  remembered, 
had  been  Foreign  Secretary  in  1806.  An  imperious 
aristocrat,  with  special  knowledge  of  international 
politics,  he  was  not  likely  to  give  his  Foreign 
Minister  the  absolutely  free  hand  which  Palmerston 
first  secured  under  Melbourne  in  1834.  Throughout 
the  episodes  just  narrated  the  policy  of  England  had 
been  shaped  as  much  by  Grey  as  by  Palmerston.  The 

Prime  Minister  suggested  alterations  in  his  Secretary 

277 


The  Story   of  British  Diplomacy 

of  State's  despatches,  and  went  over  them,  clause 
by  clause,  in  the  Cabinet.  In  his  own  department 
Palmerston  made  at  home  and  abroad  the  appoint- 
ments he  desired.  Grey,  however,  took  care  that 
the  diplomatic  service  was  largely  recruited  from  his 
own  personal  connections  or  intimates. 

The  Belgian  treaty  was  signed  by  Palmerston  and 
Talleyrand  on  22nd  October  1832.  Meanwhile, 
among  other  affairs  engaging  the  Foreign  Office 
were  those  of  the  Peninsula.  In  the  July  of  1831, 
Portuguese  outrages  on  a  French  subject  had  brought 
French  men-of-war  to  the  Tagus.  A  little  later  an 
Englishman  became  the  victim  of  like  treatment.  In 
1832  a  British  squadron  appeared  in  Portuguese  waters. 
To  pass  over  the  intervening  incidents,  the  work  of 
English  diplomacy  in  Portugal  and  Spain  was  to 
secure  constitutional  government  for  both  countries. 
Even  under  Grey,  the  tendency  of  Palmerston's 
intervention  was  systematically  to  be  upon  a  less  con- 
ditional scale  than  had  been  that  of  his  declared 
master  Canning.  Portugal,  which  in  1832  engaged 
Palmerston,  also  affords  the  best  illustration  of  the 
principles  on  which  Canning's  intervention  was 
based.  The  English  alliance  with  Portugal  dated 
from  1793.  Canning  tightened  it  by  fresh  political  and 
commercial  links.  He  only  fulfilled  a  legal  liability 
in  coming  to  its  rescue.  Palmerston,  whenever  he  in- 
tervened, did  so  to  prevent  any  single  Power  from 
dominating  Europe  ;  he  thus  needed  no  pressure  of 
pre-existing  compact  to  appear  as  the  champion  of 
constitutional  liberties.  Palmerston,  it  has  been 
already  said,  was  less  completely  his  own  master  at 

the  Foreign  Office  under  Grey  than  under  Melbourne. 

278 


The  Canning  Tradition 

In  the  year,  however,  before  he  first  went  there,  he  had 
warned  the  House  of  Commons  that  his  ideas  of  inter- 
vention were  far  more  wide  and  strenuous  than  those 
of  Canning.*  Yet  he  perceived  that  the  time  was 
coming  when  English  opinion  would  not  sanction  such 
"  intermeddling  "  (his  own  word)  except  for  the  safety 
of  our  Indian  and  Colonial  Empire.  Aberdeen  was 
sometimes  charged  with  a  Tory  leaning  towards  the 
absolute  monarchies  of  Eastern  Europe.  Palmers  ton 
professed  the  Whig  tradition  of  preference  for  Liberal 
France.  His  diplomacy,  however,  from  1835  to  1845, 
might  be  described  as  a  series  of  duels  with  the  two 
leading  French  ministers,  Guizot  and  Thiers,  equally 
with  the  motive  of  checkmating  French  designs  and 
of  maintaining  Turkish  independence.  This  period 
included  the  episode  of  Mehemet  All  in  the  East 
and  of  the  Spanish  marriages  in  the  West.  The 
former  of  these  involves  some  reference  to  transactions 
between  Russia,  Turkey  and  the  other  Powers  during 
Palmerston's  first  term  at  the  Foreign  Office  when  the 
Prime  Minister  was  Grey.  In  1833,  Russia  had  pro- 
fited by  the  preoccupation  of  the  Western  Powers  with 
Belgium  to  extort  from  Turkey  the  Treaty  of  Unkiar 
Skelessi.  This  gave  the  Czar  Nicholas  what  his 
predecessors  had  desired,  but  had  never  been  able 
even  to  come  near  obtaining.  The  war-ships  of 
every  nation  except  Russia  were  excluded  from  the 
Dardanelles.  The  Czar  stood  forth  before  the  world 
as  the  sole  friend  and  protector  of  the  Sultan.  It 
was  not  till  the  beginning  of  1834  that  the  text  of  the 
Unkiar  Skelessi  treaty  reached  the  Foreign  Office. 
Long  before  this,  however,  circumstantial  rumours 

*  Speech  in  Parliament,  ist  June  1829. 
279 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

of  the  transaction  reaching  England  had  excited  in- 
dignation against  Russia  in  and  out  of  Parliament. 
O'Connell  had  spoken  of  the  Czar  as  "  the  monster 
Nicholas,"  had  abused  Palmerston  for  his  subservience 
to  the  brute  that  had  kicked  his  country.  Like  other 
European  countries,  England  swarmed  with  Polish 
exiles.  The  Foreign  Secretary  found  himself  hustled 
and  hooted  as  he  rode  from  Piccadilly  to  Whitehall. 
Nothing  ruffled  his  cheerful  calm.  In  the  House  of 
Commons,  Henry  Bulwer's  motion  for  papers  bearing 
on  the  Russo-Turkish  rumours  were  resisted,  on  nth 
July  1833,  ^7  the  Foreign  Secretary  on  the  ground 
that  Russian  troops  had  evacuated  Turkey.  Yet,  as  it 
appeared  from  the  Morning  Herald  of  2ist  August 
1833,  on  the  mere  promise  of  such  an  evacuation,  the 
treaty  had  just  been  yielded  by  the  Porte  to  the  Czar. 
When  the  newspaper  just  named  printed  the  treaty, 
Palmerston  did  not  dispute  its  genuineness,  but  con- 
tinued to  say  he  was  not  in  possession  of  the  original, 
and  to  refuse  in  the  national  interest  the  production  of 
all  papers. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  comments  of 
Palmerston's  immediate  predecessor  in  his  post  on 
Unkiar  Skelessi,  Lord  Aberdeen  differed  from  many  of 
his  party  in  generally  approving  Palmerston's  treatment 
(1830-40)  of  Mehemet  Ali's  attempt  to  throw  off  the 
Sultan's  suzerainty  and  make  himself  an  independent 
prince.  Both  Aberdeen  and  Palmerston  had  expected 
that  Louis  Philippe  and  Thiers  would  aid  and  abet  by 
all  agencies  at  their  command,  Mehemet's  scheme  for 
disintegrating  the  Turkish  Empire,  and  for  making 
Egypt  the  seat  of  a  new  and  separate  Oriental  Power. 
Long  before  Napoleon's  invasion  of  that  country, 

280 


The  Canning  Tradition 

Egypt,  under  Louis  XVI.,  had  taken  a  powerful  hold 
of  the  popular  French  imagination.  Playing  to  the 
gallery  was  the  Orleanist  king's  and  his  minister's  idea 
of  strengthening  their  hold  upon  their  people.  One 
of  the  keys  to  French  action  at  this  period  is  the 
curiously  bitter  personal  estrangement  between  the 
Czar  Nicholas  and  Louis  Philippe.  Russia  befriended 
the  Sultan  and  aimed  at  restoring  Syria  to  him.  That 
sufficed  to  make  France  Mehemet  Ali's  partisan. 
Meanwhile,  Palmerston  and  Metternich  determined 
upon  a  settlement  of  Eastern  Europe,  independently 
if  need  be  of  France.  The  English  and  the  Austrian 
statesmen  convoked  the  London  Conference  of  1 840  ; 
on  the  1 5th  of  July  in  that  year  a  convention  was 
signed  by  England,  Austria,  Prussia  and  Russia,  to 
insist  upon  Mehemet's  restoration  of  Northern  Syria  to 
the  Sultan ;  it  further  granted  him  the  hereditary 
government  of  Egypt.  This  compact,  if  generally 
known  as  the  Quadruple  Treaty,  has  also  been  called 
the  Quadrilateral  Treaty,  as  if  to  distinguish  it  from  an 
earlier  compact  of  1834,*  by  which  another  group  of 
four  Powers  guaranteed,  as  has  been  already  said,  con- 
stitutional government  in  Portugal  and  Spain.  The 
exclusion  of  France  which  had  thwarted  Palmerston  by 
separate  negotiations  with  Mehemet  AH,  brought  her 
to  the  verge  of  war  with  England.  The  fall  of  Thiers 
alone  maintained  peace.  The  English  representative, 
Henry  Bulwer,  bore  the  brunt  of  the  falling  minister's 
personal  fury. 

The    Austro- English    naval    operations    required 

*  Before  this,  in  1834,  Palmerston  had  arranged  between  England, 
France,  Spain  and  Portugal  another  Quadruple  Treaty  for  settling  the 
Peninsula. 

28l 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

before  the  final  settlement  of  Mehemet  Ali  did  not 
diminish,  but  rather  enhanced,  the  diplomatic  prestige 
accruing  to  Palmerston  from  this  transaction.  He  had 
discredited  the  military  resources  of  Egypt,  the  invinci- 
bility of  Mehemet  himself,  and  the  necessity  which  it  had 
been  said  Louis  Philippe  and  his  ministers  would  experi- 
ence of  yielding  to  the  war-cry  of  France.  In  doing 
this  Palmerston  had  not  only  divided  the  Cabinet,  he 
had  placed  his  House  of  Commons  majority  under  a 
dangerous  strain.  He  had  gone  perilously  near  to  in- 
volving Europe  in  a  general  war.  But  all  his  calcula- 
tions and  the  private  intelligence  on  which  he  so  greatly 
relied  had  been  justified  by  the  event.  Russia  had 
tacitly  abandoned  the  pretensions  embodied  in  the 
Unkiar  Skelessi  treaty,  to  keep  Turkey  indefinitely 
under  Russian  tutelage.  The  Dardanelles  were  closed 
against  the  war-ships  of  all  countries.  Turkey  herself 
had  been  presented  with  the  opportunity  of  showing 
her  capacities  of  progress,  and  of  entering  upon  a  new 
career  under  the  common  protection  of  Europe.  This 
is  what  the  shrewd  Aberdeen  had  foreseen  when  he 
dissented  from  his  colleagues  in  their  outcry  against 
Palmerston's  early  diplomacy  in  the  Mehemet  Ali 
imbroglio.  The  cleverness  and  success  of  Palmerston's 
coup  are  beyond  doubt.  At  the  same  time  he  exposed 
himself  to  the  criticism  of  Thiers.  Mehemet  Ali  was 
to  be  crushed  that  the  integrity  of  the  Turkish  empire 
might  be  maintained.  And  yet  the  Sultan  was  to  shed 
Acre  and  Egypt  that  Mehemet  Ali  might  be  satisfied. 
The  Palmerstonian  triumphs,  though  placing  Eng- 
land at  the  head  of  Europe,  did  not  prevent  the  fall  of 
his  Government.  That  brought  with  it  the  return 

under    Sir    Robert  Peel    of  Lord  Aberdeen  in  1841. 

282 


The  Canning  Tradition 

The  new  head  of  the  Foreign  Office  at  once  made  it 
his  business  to  foster  the  entente  cordiale  between 
England  and  France.  In  this  task  he  received  help 
from  the  new  French  minister  Guizot,  his  own  con- 
genial friend.  Apart,  however,  from  recent  causes  of 
friction  he  had  to  contend  against  some  inauspicious 
general  circumstances.  The  Anglo-mania  which  had 
made  itself  fashionable  throughout  France  before  the 
Revolution,  had  been  followed  by  a  social  intimacy  be- 
tween the  upper  classes  of  both  countries.  Hence, 
among  other  things,  it  had  grown  the  polite  mode  for 
English  girls  of  good  position  to  receive  their  education 
at  French  convent  schools.  Now  the  reaction  was  due. 
There  had  become  epidemic  in  France  a  cordial  and 
all  but  universal  detestation  of  English  success,  states- 
manship and  designs.  Each  country  was  disposed  to 
fix  its  eyes  exclusively  on  the  worst  points  of  the 
other,  and  to  see  in  its  neighbour  a  rival  whose  in- 
terest conflicted  with  its  own  in  every  quarter  of  the 
globe.  The  French  ministerial  changes,  replacing 
Thiers  by  Guizot,  proved  favourable  to  the  concili- 
atory efforts  of  our  new  Foreign  Secretary ;  unlike 
Palmerston,  he  went  little  into  society  himself ;  he  was 
helped  without  knowing  it  by  the  prevailing  temper  of 
drawing-rooms  and  clubs.  Talleyrand  had  died  in 
1838.  The  social  atmosphere  generated  by  his  per- 
sonal qualities  had  tempered  British  patriotism  with  a 
good-humoured  toleration  of  French  peculiarities  and 
peccadilloes.  There  still  lingered  the  echoes  of  the 
laughter  excited  by  his  accounts  of  Louis  Philippe, 
whom  he  seemed  never  to  take  quite  seriously,  and  by 
his  innumerable  good  things  said  at  London  dinner- 
tables.  While,  however,  desiring  to  make  France  our 

283 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

friend,  Aberdeen  laid  his  account  with  the  possibility 
of  finding  her  determined  to  be  our  enemy.  Hence 
he  gratified  the  court  by  the  pains  he  took  to  remove 
the  grudges  against  us  with  which  Palmerston  had 
inspired  the  rest  of  Europe.  Amicable  relations  with 
every  European  state  and,  so  far  as  that  policy  per- 
mitted, real  friendship  with  France  fairly  described 
Lord  Aberdeen's  policy  during  his  second  Foreign 
Secretaryship.  The  London  and  Paris  Foreign  Offices 
owed  something  of  their  success  to  their  respective 
monarchies.  The  young  English  queen  had  already 
begun  to  exercise  an  influence  on  foreign  politics,  as 
real  as  that  of  her  predecessors  and  far  more  beneficent. 
The  French  interest  in  Egypt,  and  the  English 
determination  to  keep  the  line  open  to  India  caused 
periodical  though  not  dangerous  differences.  But  in 
1841,  the  French  governor  of  Tahiti  had  summarily 
seized  and  imprisoned  a  British  subject  named 
Pritchard,  generally  described  as  a  consul,  but  really 
a  missionary.  Public  indignation  already  glowed 
fiercely,  and  was  further  inflamed  by  some  strong  and 
unguarded  words  of  the  usually  cautious  Prime 
Minister,  Sir  Robert  Peel.  War-fever  in  the  two 
countries  soon  reached  its  height.  Aberdeen  and 
Guizot,  however,  had  privately  agreed  between  them- 
selves that  they  would  both  resign  rather  than  be 
parties  to  a  violation  of  peace.  The  settlement  and 
its  precise  terms  were  the  personal  contrivances  of  the 
two  statesmen  rather  than  the  products  of  their  diplo- 
matic machinery.  The  anti- English  feeling  was  so 
strong  in  the  Chamber  of  Deputies,  that  any  vote  for 
an  indemnity  to  Pritchard  for  the  outrages  he  had 

undergone  could  not  be  thought  of.     After  some  further 

284 


The   Canning  Tradition 

communications  between  Aberdeen  and  Guizot,  Louis 
Philippe  supplied  the  money  from  his  own  civil  list. 
From  1841  to  1846,  the  period  of  Aberdeen's  second 
Secretaryship,  the  diplomatic  record  of  England  re- 
solves itself  into  a  narrative  of  the  personal  friendship 
uniting  the  men  who  controlled  the  Foreign  Offices  of 
Paris  and  London.  The  popular  idea  that  Aberdeen's 
conduct  of  foreign  affairs  bore  the  impress  of  Palmer- 
ston's  mind  is  disproved  by  facts.  He  and  Guizot 
had  entered  into  an  understanding  that  neither  of 
the  pair  would  take  any  important  step  without 
first  ascertaining  the  other's  wishes.  Thus,  for  the 
only  time,  the  London  and  Paris  Foreign  Offices  were 
absolutely  at  one,  and  for  practical  purposes  constituted 
a  single  international  department.  More  apposite 
than  Tahiti  to  the  time  at  which  these  lines  are 
written  (1907),  was  Aberdeen's  Moorish  policy  in 
1844,  demonstrably  the  exact  opposite  of  that  which 
Palmerston's  would  have  been.  In  the  Cabinet 
he  stood  alone ;  he  himself  disliked  the  French 
occupation  of  Algeria  in  1830,  he  accepted  it  as  an 
accomplished  fact  in  1841  ;  he  further  acquiesced  in 
the  logical  consequences  of  this  step  when  he  recog- 
nised that,  having  established  themselves  in  Algeria, 
the  French  could  not  but  resent  the  behaviour 
of  the  Moors.  The  British  consul  at  Tangiers  was 
instructed  to  exert  his  influence  with  the  Emperor 
of  Morocco  to  yield.  The  British  admiral  in  Moorish 
waters  had  orders  to  do  nothing  that  might  inspire 
the  Moors  with  the  hope  of  moral  or  material  support 
from  England.  How  did  the  matter  end  ?  The 
French,  having  effected  their  object,  retired  from 
Morocco.  The  Anglo-French  war  panic  ended  harm- 

285 


The  Story  of  British    Diplomacy 

lessly.     The  entente  cordiale  between  the  two  countries 
had  not  been  impaired.     The  very  abuse  heaped  on 
Aberdeen  and  Guizot  in  their  respective  countries  was 
thus  a  kind  of  compliment.     The  phases  of  the  Greek 
question  presenting  themselves  to  Aberdeen  in   1843 
were  less  critical  than  those  occupying  Palmerston  six 
years  later.     The  revolution,  as  it  was  called,  of  the 
earlier  date  merely  marked  the  popular  victory  in  the 
struggle  for   constitutional    rule   against   a  capricious 
and  autocratic  monarch.       The   result  was  taken  by 
Lord  Aberdeen  for  a  legitimate  manifestation  by  the 
Greek  people  in  favour  of  constitutional  government. 
Even  this  purely  domestic  episode  provoked  the  busy 
display  of  Anglo-French  diplomatic  rivalries.     At  this 
time  England  was  represented  at  Athens  by  the  future 
Lord  Lyons,  who,  as  Sir  Edmund  Lyons,  was  a  brave 
sailor  and  accomplished  admiral,  but,  unlike  his  more 
famous  son,  not  a  born  diplomatist.    The  representative 
of  France  was  Mr  Piscatory.     Each  of  these  ministers 
had  his  own  man  among  the  Athenian  place-hunters. 
Piscatory   was    intriguing   to   get  Coletti    into   office. 
Lyons   backed   Mavrocordato.      It   was  a  mean  and 
mischievous     squabble.       With     nautical      bluntness 
Lyons    by    letter    and    speech    let    Piscatory    know 
what   he   thought    about    him.       With    undiplomatic 
prolixity  of  trivial  detail,  he  wrote  home  to  the  Foreign 
Secretary,  complaining  of  all  he  had  to  suffer  from  his 
French  rival.     In  reply  Aberdeen,  naturally  disgusted 
at  the  whole  affair,  in  a  sharp  letter  pooh-poohed  his 
agent's  grievance,  but  in  a  despatch  to  Paris  plainly  let 
the  minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  know  that  he  must  not 
presume  too  far  on  their  personal  friendship.     Guizot 

was  given  unmistakably  to  understand  that  if  Piscatory 

286 


The  Canning  Tradition 

did  not  obey  more  exactly  instructions  from  Paris, 
Lyons  also,  notwithstanding  Aberdeen's  reprimand, 
must  be  expected  to  get  out  of  hand. 

During  Aberdeen's  second  turn  at  the  Foreign 
Office  there  were  anxious  communications  between 
Whitehall  and  Washington.  One  Anglo-American 
dispute  of  some  standing  was  being  settled  when  he 
took  the  seals  in  1841.  In  that  year  the  British 
subject,  M'Leod,  charged  with  murder  on  board  the 
steamer  Caroline  in  the  Canadian  rebellion  of  1838, 
was  acquitted.  Had  he  been  found  guilty  and  exe- 
cuted, the  relations  between  the  two  countries  would 
have  been  subjected  to  an  intolerable  strain.  Another 
question  whose  settlement  by  Aberdeen  removed 
a  dangerous  and  frequent  cause  of  quarrel  was  the 
right  of  search  on  vessels  by  cruisers  engaged  in 
the  suppression  of  the  slave-trade.  Anglo-American 
friction  was  at  this  time  aggravated  by  the  indolence, 
if  not  inefficiency  of  the  British  minister  at  Washing'^ 
ton.  When  therefore  Aberdeen  took  in  hand  the 
irritating  and  inveterate  differences  about  the  north- 
east boundary  of  the  States  and  the  British  provinces, 
he  sent  out  Lord  Ashburton,  the  head  of  the  great  house 
of  Baring.  Ashburton's  fitness  for  the  work  was  uni- 
versally recognised  ;  his  personal  credentials  for  the 
mission  were  the  possession  of  an  American  wife  and  of 
commercial  interests  which  made  American  welfare  a 
scarcely  less  concern  to  him  than  that  of  Great  Britain. 
The  affair  was  settled  by  a  compromise ;  Palmers  ton 
called  it  a  bad  bargain.  The  Ashburton  treaty,  how- 
ever, that  the  envoy  brought  home,  secured  an  agree- 
ment with  the  United  States  for  suppressing  the 

slave-trade  ;    its  chief  concession  to  America  was  a 

287 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

swamp  productive  only  of  inferior  pine-trees.  At  the 
cost  of  this  the  peace  which  the  Ashburton  treaty 
secured  could  not  be  considered  dear.  The  one 
failure  of  the  Ashburton  mission  was  that  it  did  not 
decide  the  ownership  of  the  Columbia  River  littoral. 

Thus  in  the  first  decade  of  Queen  Victoria's  reign, 
Aberdeen's  diplomacy  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic, 
whatever  its  defects,  had  gone  far  towards  re- 
moving any  risk  of  immediate  rupture  between  the 
two  portions  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race.  Meanwhile 
in  France  the  diplomatic  compact  uniting  Aberdeen 
and  Guizot  did  not  prevent  Louis  Philippe  from 
privately  intriguing  with  Russia  against  the  English 
Government  to  which  he  owed  his  throne.  Had 
Thiers  remained  in  office,  the  French  king  must  have 
been  drawn  into  war  with  England.  As  it  was,  the 
curtain  had  begun  to  rise  upon  a  fresh  act  of  the 
international  melodrama  in  which  the  leading  parts 
were  sustained  by  the  diplomatists  of  London,  Paris 
and  Madrid.  The  most  important  incident  was  the 
selection  of  husbands  for  the  young  Queen  of  Spain, 
Isabella,  and  her  sister  Fernanda.  That  was  only 
one  of  several  episodes. 

Egypt,  by  the  overthrow  of  Mehemet  Ali,  had 
been  withdrawn  from  the  sphere  of  French  influence ; 
British  diplomacy  was  converting  the  land  of  the 
Pharaohs  into  an  outpost  of  India.  These  things 
had  wounded  French  self-love  to  the  quick ;  they 
had  set  the  astute  Louis  Philippe  on  the  congenial 
work  of  private  intrigue  against  England.  In  this 
he  was  stimulated  and  assisted  by  the  Paris  salons 
which  formed  part  of  his  court,  and  whose  mistresses 

found  among  their  guests  colleagues  in  the  wives  of 

288 


The  Canning  Tradition 

Russian  statesmen  like  Benckendorff,  Nesselrode  and 
Tchernitcheff.  The  queen-mother  of  Spain,  Christina, 
flitted  to  and  fro  between  Paris  and  Madrid.  After- 
wards she  posed  as  the  admirer  of  England  and  the 
friend  of  Queen  Victoria  ;  now  she  was  being  feted  by 
the  French  king  as  the  mother-in-law  elect  of  the  Due 
de  Montpensier,  whom  he  wished  to  make  the  husband 
of  the  younger  Spanish  princess,  Fernanda. 

Meanwhile  a  French  envoy,  Meunier,  had  arrived 
in  England  to  sound  the  British  Government  on  the 
subject.  The  diplomacy  of  this  affair  calls  for 
mention  here,  but  the  negotiations  and  their  ending 
have  been  written  about  so  often  that  it  is  un- 
necessary here  to  follow  all  the  details.  In  1840, 
during  the  Carlist  War,  Guizot's  unofficial  mention  of 
the  subject  to  Palmers  ton  not  only  confirmed  the 
English  statesman's  suspicion  of  Louis  Philippe's  being 
bent  on  securing  the  young  Queen  Isabella  as  a  bride 
for  his  son ;  it  drew  forth  the  declaration  that 
England  must  veto  such  a  match.  Louis  Philippe 
therefore  abandoned  this  idea  and  directed  his  efforts 
to  promoting  the  marriage  of  Isabella  with  her  cousin 
the  Duke  of  Cadiz,  and  to  securing  for  his  own  son, 
the  Due  de  Montpensier,  the  Princess  Fernanda.  He 
had  satisfied  himself  that  the  union  of  Isabella  and  the 
Duke  of  Cadiz  was  not  likely  to  be  fruitful.  The 
child  that  might  be  born  of  the  Due  de  Montpensier 
and  the  Fernanda  marriage  would  in  that  case  be  heir 
to  the  Spanish  throne. 

Addressed  by  Guizot  on  the  same  subject  in  1841, 
Aberdeen,  who  had  then  just  gone  to  the  Foreign 
Office,  declined  a  suggestion  of  limiting  the  Spanish 

queen's  choice  to  a  Spanish  or  Neapolitan  Bourbon  ; 
T  289 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

but  added  that  such  a  match,  if  desired  at  Madrid, 
would  not  be  opposed  by  Great  Britain.  In  1845, 
Queen  Victoria  and  Prince  Albert  were  on  a  visit  to 
Louis  Philippe  at  the  CMteau  d'Eu.  The  royal  guests 
then  supplemented  the  work  of  the  London  Foreign 
Office  by  a  definite  agreement  with  their  host  himself. 
First,  Queen  Isabella  herself  must  marry  her  cousin,  the 
Duke  of  Cadiz.  Then  Louis  Philippe's  son,  the  Due  de 
Montpensier,  might  become  the  husband  of  Isabella's 
sister.  Neither  the  cordiality  between  the  reigning 
houses  of  France  and  England,  nor  the  mutual  de- 
votion of  the  French  and  English  Foreign  Ministers 
caused  the  French  king  really  to  abandon  the  idea  of 
uniting  the  French  and  Spanish  branches  of  the 
Bourbon  family.  The  matrimonial  diplomacy  of  the 
French  court  and  its  chancery  did  in  effect  revive  the 
seventeenth-century  Family  Compact  for  a  union  of 
the  French  and  Spanish  crowns  baffled  by  Chat- 
ham. But  it  displayed  features  of  calculating  heart- 
lessness  on  the  part  of  the  French  king  that  were 
new. 

At  the  Chateau  d'Eu  house-party  in  1845,  tne 
English  and  French  royalties  had  further  settled  that 
neither  of  the  Spanish  princesses  should  find  a  husband 
in  Leopold  of  Saxe-Coburg ;  this  was  the  cousin  of 
Prince  Albert  and  brother  of  the  King  Consort  of  Por- 
tugal ;  his  name  in  this  connection  was  then  mentioned 
for  the  first  time.  In  1846,  Palmerston  returned  to  the 
Foreign  Office  and  at  once  fell  out  of  favour  at  court 
for  naming  in  a  despatch  to  Madrid  Leopold  as  a 
possible  suitor  for  Queen  Isabella.  Guizot  seized  this 
indiscretion  as  an  excuse  for  hurrying  on  the  Mont- 
pensier marriage  which  he  had  already  agreed  to 

290 


The  Canning  Tradition 

postpone.  Meanwhile  the  representatives  of  England 
and  France,  Henry  Bulwer,  afterwards  Lord  Bailing, 
and  M.  Bresson,  had  been  squabbling  daily  and 
making  bad  blood  all  round  at  Madrid.  In  fact,  so 
rust  an  observer  from  behind  the  scenes  as  the 
already-mentioned  Lord  Rokeby  attributed  the  entire 
dispute  far  less  to  any  jealousy  of  Palmerston  and 
Guizot  than  to  the  quarrel  between  Bulwer  and  Bresson. 
Bulwer's  protest  against  Louis  Philippe's  nominee,  the 
Duke  of  Cadiz,  a  perfect  monster  with  a  square  face 
and  a  turned-up  nose,  being  forced  upon  a  young- 
sovereign  all  but  brought  the  French  and  English 
diplomatists  to  blows.  On  loth  October  1846,  Queen 
Isabella,  however,  took  this  man  for  her  husband. 
On  the  same  day  her  younger  sister,  Fernanda,  became 
the  wife  of  the  Due  de  Montpensier.  Guizot's  promise 
to  delay  the  Montpensier  marriage  had  thus  been 
broken.  He  defended  his  breach  of  faith  in  a  letter  to 
his  friend  Henry  Reeve,  the  well-known  Edinburgh  Re- 
view editor.*  Guizot's  distrust  of  Palmerston  amounted 
to  monomania,  and  the  mere  mention  of  Leopold's  name 
had  caused  him  to  scent  a  fresh  Palmerstonian  plot.  In 
her,  till  recently  unpublished,  papers  on  the  subject, 
Queen  Victoria  ascribes  the  whole  difficulty  to  Aber- 
deen not  having  been  at  the  Foreign  Office  instead  of 
Palmerston,  and  to  Louis  Philippe's  and  Guizot's 
dishonesty. 

More  forcibly  than  had  been  done  by  the  Franco- 
Turkish-Egyptian  imbroglio  or  by  any  other  inter- 
national complication,  the  affair  of  the  Spanish  marriages 
illustrates  the  effect  of  a  purely  and  essentially  diplo- 
matic episode  on  the  entire  relations  of  two  countries 

*  Reeve  Memoir S)  i.  181-2. 
291 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

for  some  time  to  come.  To  that  result  other  causes 
were  indeed  accessory.  The  matter  developed  itself 
into  a  competition  of  nations  as  well  as  a  rivalry  of 
courts  and  Cabinets. 

Formerly  Spain  supplied  England  and  France 
with  the  same  bone  of  contention  that  Egypt  has  in  our 
time  been.  Of  the  two  principal  Spanish  parties,  the 
Moderados  looked  to  France  ;  the  English  proteges 
were  the  Progressists.  Consequently,  the  retirement 
of  Queen  Christina,  a  Moderado,  and  the  regency  of 
the  Progressist  Espartero  in  1841  were  regarded  as 
abasing  France  and  exalting  England.  About  the 
same  time  De  Salvandy,  the  new  ambassador  from 
France,  reached  Madrid.  Told  by  the  authorities 
that  he  must  present  his  credentials  to  the  Regent 
Espartero  instead  of  to  Queen  Isabella,  then  a  child 
of  ten,  he  appealed  to  the  traditional  right  of  ambas- 
sadors to  approach  the  sovereign,  of  whatever  age,  in 
person.  Thus  he  said,  in  1715,  the  diplomatist  ac- 
credited by  the  King  of  Spain  to  the  French  court 
was  received  in  person  by  Louis  XV.,  although  then 
an  infant  of  five.  One  of  Palmerston's  favourite 
diplomatists,  Aston,  had  just  succeeded  Villiers  as 
minister  at  the  Spanish  capital.  Salvandy  therefore 
complained  to  the  French  Foreign  Office  of  an  affront 
placed  on  himself  and  his  country  by  a  British  intrigue. 
Aston's  conduct,  in  taking  sides  against  the  French 
ambassador,  gave  some  colour  to  this  charge.  Aberdeen, 
however,  at  that  time  Foreign  Minister,  composed  the 
differences  by  despatching  a  severe  reproof  to  Aston, 
and  showing  the  French  Government  a  copy  of  it. 
The  intercourse  between  the  French  and  British 

Governments  and  Spain  now  became  almost  affection- 

292 


The  Canning  Tradition 

ate.  The  two  Powers  had  but  a  disinterested  wish  to 
merit  the  benediction  of  peacemakers.  They  would 
mutually  yield,  or  would  do  anything ;  only  let 
their  co-operation  restore  peace  to  distracted  Spain. 
Apropos  of  the  light  thrown  by  them  upon  Metternich, 
I  have  already  expressed  my  obligations  to  the  un- 
printed  family  papers  shown  me  long  ago  by  the  last 
Lord  Rokeby.  As  regards  the  present  subject  they 
suggested,  I  remember,  the  probability  of  the  Spanish 
marriages  idea  having  almost  simultaneously  presented 
itself  to  the  French  king  and  the  Spanish  queen-mother 
in  or  about  the  year  1841.  Louis  Philippe  at  the  time 
would  come  to  no  decision  till  the  return  of  his 
emissary,  Pageot,  from  London,  whither  he  had  been 
sent  to  report  how  the  idea  was  received  by  England. 
Except  at  the  point  just  mentioned,  the  manuscript 
evidence  accessible  to  me  contained  nothing  calling 
for  any  modification  in  the  accepted  version  already 
given  of  the  diplomatic  incidents  subsequent  to  1841. 


293 


CHAPTER  XII 

REACTION    TO    INTERVENTION 

Palmerston's  diplomacy — Its  manner  too  offhand  for  the  Court — 
Palmerston  on  his  defence — His  dismissal  from  the  Foreign 
Office  —  Lord  Granville's  essay  on  British  Foreign  Policy 
—  Lord  Malmesbury  as  Foreign  Minister  —  He  recognises 
Napoleon  III.  as  Emperor  of  the  French — Malmesbury 's  private 
Secretary,  Sir  H.  D.  Wolff— Affairs  in  Italy— The  Peace  of 
Villafranca — Lord  John  Russell  at  the  Foreign  Office — Suc- 
ceeded by  Lord  Clarendon — The  diplomacy  of  the  Crimean 
War — Sir  Stratford  Canning  and  Menschikoff — The  first  Vienna 
Conference  (1853)— The  Vienna  Note— The  Four  Points— The 
second  Vienna  Conference  (1855) — Dissatisfaction  caused  by 
Lord  John  Russell's  diplomacy — England's  allies  make  peace 
with  Russia — "  Take  care  of  Dowb  " — The  Congress  of  Paris — 
The  diplomatic  results  of  the  War — The  gradual  independence 
of  the  Balkan  States — The  Black  Sea  clauses,  objected  to  by 
Russia,  abrogated  in  1871. 

PALMERSTON'S  description  of  himself  as  a 
disciple  and  a  successor  of  Canning  was  offered 
with  an  ingenuous  diffidence  which,  in  early  days, 
constituted  his  chief  personal  charm.  Such,  according 
to  William  Wilberforce,  were  then  his  modesty  and 
prudence  that,  for  want  of  a  little  self-confidence,  he 
lost  the  Cambridge  University  seat  to  Lord  Henry 
Petty.  Like  the  earliest  of  English  Foreign  Secretaries, 
Fox,  he  had  begun  as  a  high  Tory  ;  his  official  debut 
was  made  under  Perceval  and  Liverpool.  But  after- 
wards he  went  with  Canning  for  Catholic  Emancipa- 
tion, and  with  Huskisson  for  Free  Trade.  These 

294 


Reaction  to  Intervention 

vicissitudes  of  his  political  experience  and  his  subse- 
quent necessities  as  a  liberal  leader  reflected  them- 
selves in  the  whole  course  of  his  international  methods. 
A  spirited  foreign  policy  was  at  once  agreeable  to  his 
early  Tory  traditions,  and  to  his  own  personal  tastes. 
During  his  first  premiership,  the  House  of  Commons 
defeat,  inflicted  on  him  by  Cobden  on  the  Lorcha 
Arrow  affair,  gave  him  the  opportunity  of  proving  his 
strength  in  the  country,  of  obtaining  a  majority  of 
seventy-nine,  and  for  a  time  of  overthrowing  his  enemies 
of  the  Manchester  School.  Nevertheless,  as  none 
knew  better  than  Palmerston  himself,  Cobden's  in- 
fluence on  the  conduct  of  external  affairs  was  hence- 
forward a  power  to  be  reckoned  with.  Palmerston 
had  a  preference  for  constitutional  government  abroad 
as  well  as  at  home.  The  stand  made  by  him  for 
popular  liberties  in  Italy  and  Austria  was  stimulated 
and  even  decided  by  the  old  Whig  jealousy  of  the 
sovereign's  interference  in  the  interests  of  Imperial 
absolutism.  The  aristocratic  Whigs  and  occasionally 
the  new  Disraelian  Conservatives  formed  his  real  sup- 
port in  the  resolution  that  England  should  "  count  for 
something,"  by  which,  in  effect  was  meant  everything, 
in  the  councils  of  Europe.  When,  in  1844,  the 
Czar  Nicholas  paid  his  famous  visit  to  Queen  Victoria, 
Palmerston  was  not  among  the  English  statesmen 
who  interviewed  him.  The  possible  establishment 
of  England  in  Egypt  was  then  the  subject  of  Anglo- 
Russian  communications.  "  Henceforth,"  Palmerston 
said,  "our  only  foreign  policy  is  to  keep  Egypt  open 
arid  say  'hands  off'  as  regards  India  and  the 
Colonies."  Aberdeen,  as  has  been  said,  saw  in 

Palmerston    the    political    sportsman,    ever    ready   in 

295 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

any  part  of  the  world  to  let  slip  the  English  dogs  of 
war.  As  a  fact,  even  during  his  first  Secretaryship, 
Palmerston  withstood  much  pressure  from  personal 
and  political  friends  to  join  France  in  intervening  to 
put  down  the  Carlist  rising  in  Spain.  In  1844,  he 
would,  like  Aberdeen,  Peel  and  Wellington,  have 
recognised  the  Czar  as  the  protector  of  the  Greek 
Christians,  and  would  even  have  allowed  France 
separately  to  settle  the  Eastern  question  with  Russia. 
At  a  later  date  (1856)  he  resisted  some  political  and 
popular  pressure  by  abstaining  from  all  show  of  sym- 
pathy with  the  Danubian  States  in  their  efforts  after 
independence.  To  that  era  also  belonged  his  expres- 
sions about  Servia,  which,  addressed  to  Baron 
Brunnow,  startled  out  of  his  composure  that  seasoned 
diplomatist.  The  Prince  Consort's  views  on  the  place, 
the  responsibilities  and  opportunities  of  England  in 
the  comity  of  European  nations,  as  they  can  be 
gathered  from  Sir  Theodore  Martin's  biography,  did 
not  materially  differ  from  the  Palmerstonian  ideas. 

The  duel  between  the  Foreign  Office  and  the 
court,  filling  so  large  a  space  in  the  early  Victorian 
era,  was  caused  more  by  the  official  methods  of  the 
Secretary  of  State  than  by  his  objects.  The  Spanish 
marriages  and  Palmerston's  unfortunate  mention  of 
the  Coburg  candidate  for  Queen  Isabella  had,  as  has 
been  seen,  stirred  the  first  breeze  between  the  depart- 
ment and  the  palace.  How  stiffly  it  blew  from 
Windsor  is  shown  by  Lord  Esher's  and  Mr  Benson's 
epistolary  selections  for  I7th  April  1847.  This  early 
complaint  is  to  the  same  effect  as  so  many  that 
followed  it ;  drafts  to  Foreign  Ministers  have  been,  in 

the   future   must   not   be,    despatched    without   being 

296 


Reaction  to  Intervention 

previously  submitted  to  the  queen.  During  the 
period  now  reached,  however,  the  sovereign  alleged 
another  grievance  than  one  of  state  formality  against 
the  unconscionable  minister. 

In  the  revolutionary  year  of  1848,  the  queen's  rela- 
tions with  the  French  and  Russian  sovereigns  remained 
those  of  personal  cordiality.  She  had  forgiven  Louis 
Philippe  the  double-dealing  of  his  international  match- 
making. Victoria  of  England  and  Nicholas  of  Russia 
interchanged  expressions  of  mutual  regard  and  belief  in 
their  common  preservation  for  the  world's  welfare.  That 
seemed  natural  in  the  case  of  the  only  two  monarchs 
whose  thrones  had  not  been  violently  shaken  by  the 
earthquake  shocks  of  1848.  As  a  member  of  the 
reigning  comity  of  Europe,  the  queen  vetoed  her 
Foreign  Minister's  plan  for  joining  the  King  of 
Sardinia  to  secure  Italian  independence.  It  would, 
she  said,  be  a  disgrace  to  please  the  republican  party 
by  driving  Austria  out  of  her  possessions  in  Italy. 
Disraeli  once  called  Palmerston's  Italian  policy  in 
1848  "too  clever  by  half."  But  for  that  defect,  it 
might  have  gone  still  further  than  it  actually  did 
towards  accomplishing  the  achievements  of  eleven 
years  later  and  their  consequences.  The  English 
court  differed  from  the  English  minister  in  consider- 
ing its  first  duties  were  owed,  not  to  oppressed 
nationalities,  but  to  menaced  monarchs.  Palmer- 
ston's policy  aimed  at  nothing  less  than  the  annexa- 
tion of  Lombardy  by  Sardinia  and  the  creation  of  a 
Venetian  republic.  France  alone,  said  the  queen, 
would  be  the  eventual  gainer  by  this  base  and 
quixotic  enterprise.  The  comment  of  politicians  at 

home  and  abroad  on  the  royal  outburst  at  the  time, 

297 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

was  that  it  bore  the  signs  of  Aberdeen's  inspiration, 
Palmerston  thought  or  said  so.  It  all,  however,  arose 
out  of  the  queen's  Irish  worries.  If  Italy  were  to 
be  helped  to  independence,  on  what  principle  could 
Irish  subjection  to  England  be  defended  ? 

With  the  antagonism  thus  developed  between  the 
Foreign  Office  and  the  palace  there  may  be  compared 
the  mutual  relations  of  the  Foreign  Minister  and  his 
political  opponents  or  allies.  The  queen's  description,  in 
1 848,  of  Palmerston's  international  correspondence  was 
''bitter  as  gall  and  doing  great  harm."  A  few  years 
earlier  Palmerston,  with  great  personal  success,  had 
made  a  diplomatic  tour  through  Continental  capitals. 
Referring  to  this  in  1845,  Disraeli,  in  what  Palmerston 
described  as  an  interesting  and  courteous  letter,  told 
the  Foreign  Minister  that,  had  he  paid  a  later  visit  to 
Paris,  he  would  have  cured  the  French  of  their 
distrust  of  him  and  would  have  made  them  his  friends. 
Without  leaving  England,  Palmerston,  by  his  Parlia- 
mentary defence  under  Lord  Stanley's  attacks  during 
Sir  Robert  Peel's  ministry,  had  contrived  to  correct 
many  foreign  misconceptions  about  himself,  in  1845. 
The  charge  against  him  was  that  by  having  pursued  a 
policy  of  restless  interference  with  the  business  of  the 
world  he  had  left  a  heritage  of  anxiety  to  his  successor. 
In  reply  he  pointed  to  three  occasions  during  a  decade 
on  which  he  had  avoided  the  only  real  danger  of  war 
that  had  arisen.  In  1830,  Austria,  Prussia  and  Russia 
were  actually  preparing  to  attack  France.  Palmerston, 
as  Lord  Grey's  Foreign  Minister,  prevented  a 
European  war.  To  the  same  period  belonged  the 
Anglo-French  Convention  for  delivering  Antwerp 

to    Belgium ;    this   averted   a    European  disturbance. 

298 


Reaction  to  Intervention 

The  third  appearance  of  Palmerston  as  peacemaker 
connected  itself  with  the  treaty  which,  in  1840,  dis- 
posed of  the  danger  arising  from  Mehemet  Ali's 
attempt.  Palmerston's  elaborate  justification  of  himself 
and  attitude  is  contained  in  a  memorandum  drawn 
up  in  1848  as  well  as  in  the  House  of  Commons  speech 
of  6th  March  1849.  The  memorandum  will  be  found 
on  page  102  of  Palmerston  in  "The  Queen's 
Prime  Ministers  "  series.  The  substance  of  the  speech 
is  in  the  easily  accessible  histories  of  the  period. 
Some  of  its  chief  points  were  as  follows: — In  1849 
Palmerston's  diplomacy  had,  as  he  claimed  for  it, 
made  England  the  chief  mediator  of  Europe,  the 
safe  asylum  of  discrowned  kings,  of  fallen  statesmen, 
and  the  steady  champion  of  well-ordered  constitutional 
reform.  For  a  man  whose  position  was  raked  by 
the  cross-fires  of  Radical  and  Tory,  in  addition  to  the 
musketry  of  the  court,  Palmerston's  composure  was 
remarkable  and  his  mistakes  comparatively  few. 

In  the  instructions  to  his  agents  abroad  he  had  com- 
mended timely  concessions  on  the  part  of  established 
governments  in  the  interests  of  European  peace.  This 
advice  was  called  an  incitement  to  revolution  by  the 
reactionary  Conservatives,  who  made  common  cause 
with  the  Cobdenites  against  the  "  incorrigible  Pam." 

If,  according  to  Foreign  Office  traditions,  in  the 
spirit  of  Wellington  and  Peel  as  well  as  Canning,  he 
accepted  the  accomplished  facts  of  the  new  order, 
he  heard  himself  called  a  treaty-breaker.  He  was  also 
the  first  Foreign  Secretary  to  feel  the  daily  attacks  of 
the  press.  The  Times  had  fallen  foul  of  him  ;  he  was 
charged  by  the  newspaper  with  fomenting  the 

Sicilian  revolution,  and  further  with  conniving  at  the 

299 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

supply  of  ordnance  to  the  insurgents.  In  the 
memorandum  already  mentioned  he  successfully 
showed  that  a  chief  object  of  his  sending  Lord  Minto 
to  the  South  of  Europe  had  been  at  once  to  comply 
with  the  pope's  request  for  British  encouragement  in 
the  Vatican's  project  of  political  reform,  and  to  press 
upon  the  insurrectionary  party  advice  which  might 
maintain  the  crowns  of  the  two  Sicilies  on  one  head. 
But  for  an  untoward  accident,  the  Minto  mission 
would  have  had  this  effect.  As  for  the  smuggling  in 
of  arms  by  the  rebels,  Palmerston  put  a  new  com- 
plexion on  the  facts  at  the  same  time  that  he  made  the 
amende  to  the  King  of  Naples.  So,  too,  in  the  case  of 
Northern  Italy.  His  misgivings  about  Louis 
Napoleon's  ultimate  aim  did  not  prevent  him  from 
joining  France  in  mediation  between  Austria  and 
Sardinia ;  upon  the  Sardinian  king,  Charles  Albert, 
he  had  personally  impressed  the  folly  and  peril 
of  renewing  the  war.  The  object  of  the  French 
President,  as  Louis  Napoleon  then  was,  in  maintain- 
ing the  papal  power  at  Rome  could  only  be,  as 
Palmerston  saw,  to  secure  the  head  of  the  Church  for 
an  ally  in  his  own  Imperial  projects. 

Palmerston  condemned  at  this  time  also  Russian  in- 
tervention to  suppress  Hungarian  patriotism  in  Austria. 
Herein  he  showed  entire  consistency  with  that  earlier 
reluctance  to  involve  England  in  foreign  affairs  already 
noticed.  In  the  course  of  conversation  during  a  visit 
to  Valengaye,*  alluding  to  the  English  diplomatist, 
Talleyrand  had  said — "  He  has  not  the  power  of 
reasoning."  Yet  neither  Queen  Victoria's  dislike  of 
his  democratic  proclivities  in  foreign  affairs  nor  their 

*  Talleyrand's  chateau,  near  Blois. 
300 


Reaction  to  Intervention 

own  distrust  in  him  prevented  the  Vienna  statesmen 
invoking  his  mediation  in  1848.  Palmerston's  advice 
to  Austria  was  "  Give  up  Lombardy  and  the  greater 
part  of  Venetia  to  the  King  of  Piedmont  and  maintain 
a  compact  empire."  Here  at  least  was  the  prescience 
which  is  a  part  of  statesmanship. 

The  department  presided  over  by  Palmerston 
gained  in  his  day  rather  than  suffered  by  its  standing 
quarrel  with  the  court.  "  Two  capital  hits  clean  off  my 
own  bat."  Such  were  the  words  which  he  had  used 
to  describe,  so  far  back  as  1834,  the  earliest  intimation 
to  Austria  of  his  resolution  not  to  acquiesce  in  her 
suppression  of  Italian  autonomy.  The  second  stroke 
so  complacently  dwelt  on  was  the  expedient  belonging 
to  the  same  period  for  counter-working  the  Russo- 
Prussian  league  of  Mlinchengratz  that  almost  amounted 
to  a  second  birth  of  the  Holy  Alliance. 

If  on  the  whole  Palmerston  was  good  as  a  negotiator, 
as  an  interpreter  of  English  feeling  he  was  nearly  infal- 
lible. Hence  his  indifference  to  the  royal  reprimand  for 
his  republican  leanings  in  1849.  That  was  the  year 
of  Tory  and  Absolutist  reaction  from  democratic  im- 
pulse throughout  Europe.  The  spectacle  disgusted 
Palmerston  ;  his  combative  spirit  took  fire  against  it. 
Those  who  can  recall  the  public  feeling  of  the  time  are 
aware  that  English  opinion  was  more  bitter  against  the 
Czar  for  his  treatment  of  Kossuth  in  1 849  than  when,  five 
years  later,  the  Russian  troops  crossed  the  Pruth.  It 
mattered  not  what  place  in  the  Cabinet  Palmerston  held. 
His  was  the  master-mind  that  stamped  its  foreign 
policy  with  his  own  image.  In  the  conduct  of  ex- 
ternal relations,  if  anywhere,  knowledge  is  power. 

Palmerston    was    the     best-informed    diplomatist    in 

301 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

Europe.  For  his  acquaintance  with  the  coulisses  of 
Paris  politics  he  owed  much  to  the  active  and  resource- 
ful secretary  of  the  embassy,  under  the  first  Earl  Gran- 
ville,  afterwards  under  Lord  Cowley,  between  the  years 
1 840  and  1 867.  This  was  Henry  L.  Bulwer,  afterwards 
Lord  Bailing,  the  diplomatist  whom  we  have  seen 
pitted  against  Bresson  at  Madrid,  and  whom  Palmer- 
ston  had  done  much  to  mould  after  his  own  ideas. 

Napoleon  III.  himself  had  many  effective  and  ubi- 
quitous agents.  Palmerston  was  sufficiently  served  by 
our  then  deputy  representative  at  the  Elys^e.*  Nor 
did  news  of  intrigues  at  the  Quai  d'Orsay,  or  rumours 
from  the  lobbies  of  the  corps  ttgislatif  reach  the  news- 
paper editors  of  the  boulevards  more  quickly  or  surely 
than  by  way  of  our  chancery  in  the  Faubourg  St 
Honore"  they  travelled  to  Palmerston  at  Cambridge 
House.  Neither  the  Peers'  censure  on  Palmerston's 
doings  of  1850,  nor  the  hostile  vote  of  the  Commons 
in  1857  weakened  his  hold  on  the  strings  of  foreign 
policy.  He  did  not  really  come  to  grief  till  1851,  when 
he  lost  his  place  for  prematurely  recognising  Louis 
Napoleon's  act  of  usurpation.  Whether  he  was  at  the 
Foreign  Office  or  not  he  set  the  tune  to  which  ministers 
played  and  the  middle  classes  never  grumbled  at  hav- 
ing to  pay  the  piper.  The  Lords  voted  him  down,  the 
court  cut  him,  but  the  pre- Household  Suffrage  con- 
stituencies placed  him  at  the  head  of  the  administration 
which  had  come  after  the  close  of  the  Crimean  War 
and  the  tottering  of  the  Aberdeen  Government  to  its 
fall.  Palmerston,  however,  by  this  time  had  learned 

*  H.  L.  Bulwer,  the  novelist's  elder  brother,  had,  in  subordinate  but 
influential  capacities,  boxed  the  compass  of  diplomacy  before  himself 
becoming  an  ambassador.  Retiring  as  Lord  Bailing,  he  died  in  1872, 
the  year  before  Lord  Lytton. 

302 


Reaction  to  Intervention 

that  a  spirited  foreign  policy,  such  as  suits  the  country, 
must  have  its  limitations,  and  must  assure  to  those  who 
pay  for  it  a  solid  as  well  as  a  glorious  return. 

Palmerston's  first  specific  recognition  of  the  hold 
of  Cobdenism  as  a  force  in  foreign  affairs  was 
when,  in  1842,  he  had  denounced  the  Ashburton 
mission  to  settle  the  Maine  boundary  as  a  dangerous 
and  gratuitously  entangling  responsibility.  Two  years 
later  he  uncomplainingly  acquiesced  in  the  readiness 
of  the  Duke  of  Wellington  and  Sir  Robert  Peel,  as 
well  as  Aberdeen  himself,  not  only  not  to  resent,  but  to 
entertain  the  pretensions  of  the  Czar  to  the  protectorate 
of  the  Greek  Church.  After  1837  the  inviolability  of 
our  Asiatic  possessions  had  become  a  commonplace 
of  our  diplomacy.  Hence  during  his  second  term  of 
office  Palmerston  had  done  not  more  than  would  have 
been  done  by  Aberdeen,  when  he  set  in  motion  the 
Foreign  Office  machinery  for  repelling,  through  Persia, 
Russian  designs  on  British  India,  and  securing  Herat 
for  England.  The  maintenance  of  British  interests  in 
the  nearer  East  would  have  been  admitted  as  a 
principle  of  our  policy  by  the  non-interventionists 
themselves.  Palmerston  fell,  by  reason  not  so  much 
of  what  he  did,  as  of  the  way  in  which  he  did  it.  He 
habitually  violated  the  stereotyped  laws  of  State  and 
court  etiquette.  He  compelled  his  reluctant  colleagues 
mutely  to  acquiesce  in  their  exclusion  from  a  sight  of 
the  important  despatches  sent  off  at  critical  junctures  to 
British  ambassadors  abroad,  or  to  the  ministers  of  other 
countries.  The  climax  came  in  1851,  after  the  Secretary 
of  State  had  placed  on  record  his  recognition  of 
Louis  Napoleon's  coup  d£tat.  Palmerston's  argument 
against  his  dismissal  from  the  Foreign  Office  was  as 

303 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

ingenious  as  it  proved  futile.  If,  he  characteristically 
said,  a  Foreign  Minister  were  never  to  converse  with 
an  ambassador  without  having  previously  consulted 
the  Cabinet,  there  would  be  an  end  to  the  friendly 
intercourse  which  so  often  acts  as  oil  to  the  wheels 
of  the  diplomatic  machine.  Lord  John  Russell's  sole 
remark  on  this  plea  took  the  form  of  the  curt  state- 
ment— that  he  had  asked  the  queen  to  appoint  a 
new  Foreign  Secretary.  Thus  did  Palmerston  receive 
check  from  his  queen,  but  it  was  far  from  being 
checkmate.  Indeed,  it  improved  his  position  not 
only  with  the  country,  but  with  some  of  his  least 
sympathetic  political  associates.  Thus,  Lord  Grey  in 
1845  had  refused  to  sit  in  a  Cabinet  with  Palmerston 
at  the  Foreign  Office.  Now,  in  1851,  Grey  was  among 
the  earliest  to  express  to  the  fallen  minister  regret  at 
his  downfall  and  admiration  at  his  pluck. 

During  the  Christmas  holidays  of  1851,  Palmerston 
removed  his  personal  belongings  from  the  Foreign 
Office,  and  Lord  Granville  took  possession.  "You 
have  got,"  said  the  departing  minister  to  the  new- 
comer, "  a  very  interesting,  but  a  very  laborious  office. 
Eight  hours'  work,  when  little  is  doing,  must  be 
your  daily  minimum.  When  there  is  a  '  bustle '  you 
must  give  more,  or  you  will  find  yourself  in  arrears." 
"  Palmerston,"  was  the  way  in  which  I  have  heard 
Lord  Granville  put  it,  "gave  me  something  better 
than  advice  in  the  shape  of  a  comprehensive  and 
most  interesting  review  of  our  diplomacy  from  the 
establishment  of  the  Foreign  Office  under  Charles 
James  Fox."*  Lord  Granville's  instalment  at  the 

*  The  conversation  on  this  subject  allowed  me  by  Lord  Granville 
suggested  to  me  the  lines  on  which  this  book  is  written. 

304 


Reaction  to  Intervention 

Foreign  Office  marked  the  victory  won  by  a  queen 
of  thirty-two  over  a  rust  diplomatist  and  man  of  the 
world  of  sixty-seven.  Henceforth  it  was  therefore 
said  the  Foreign  Office  would  go  in  leading-strings 
to  the  court.  At  least  there  would  be  no  more 
"scores"  to  be  made  by  the  Secretary  of  State  "off 
his  own  bat " ;  no  more  international  pyrotechnics, 
Roman  candles  one  day  and  Greek  fire  the  next. 
The  chorus  of  eulogistic  welcome  from  friend  and 
foe  that  greeted  the  new  minister  was  almost  too 
fervent  and  too  unbroken.  "Sufficiently  liberal," 
"conciliatory,"  "safe,"  were  the  epithets  applied  by 
Aberdeen  to  Granville  when  speaking  of  "  the  excel- 
lent appointment  likely  to  remove  very  serious  em- 
barrassments." The  queen  lost  no  time  in  personally 
testing  the  capacities  of  her  latest  servant,  and  in 
showing  that  he  would  be  held  directly  responsible 
to  herself.  The  Chinese  emperors  require  a  written 
proof  of  ability  and  knowledge  before  they  select 
their  state  councillors.  The  English  queen  was 
content  to  receive  such  a  credential  after  the  appoint- 
ment actually  had  been  made.  Lord  Granville  was 
told  to  put  down  on  paper  his  ideas  of  the  principles 
on  which  the  external  relations  of  the  realm  should 
be  controlled.  "The  time,"  added  his  royal  mistress, 
"  is  peculiarly  favourable  for  such  an  exercise."  The 
revolutionary  storm  of  1848,  she  added,  had  now 
spent  its  force.  There  could  therefore  no  longer  be 
any  excuse  for  mere  hand-to-mouth  policy.  Some- 
thing like  continuity  in  our  foreign  statesmanship 
had  thus  become  practicable  ;  on  what  principles  was 
it  to  be  based  ?  This  formed  the  subject  of  the 
probationary  essay  set  by  the  sovereign  to  the  new- 
u  305 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

comer  ;  in  this  way  he  was  to  show  himself  up  to 
his  work,  and  define  beforehand  the  general  rules 
to  whose  observation  he  pledged  himself.  This  test 
composition  was  revised  and  discussed  by  the  Cabinet 
before  it  received  the  finishing  touches  of  the  queen. 
Its  full  text  has  not  been  published  ;  its  chief  points 
are  given  by  Lord  Fitzmaurice.*  It  dwells  on 
the  interest  and  duty  of  Great  Britain,  with  her 
world-wide  possessions,  to  encourage  progress  of  all 
kinds  with  other  nations.  Then  comes  the  cut  at 
Palmerstonianism.  Justice,  moderation,  self-respect, 
and  a  refusal  of  any  undue  attempt  to  enforce  her 
own  ideas  by  hostile  threats,  should  be  England's 
chief  aim.  We  are,  however,  above  all  things  a 
trading  people,  and,  because  a  trading,  a  civilising 
one.  Therefore  it  is  an  elementary  duty  to  obtain 
for  our  foreign  trade,  in  all  seas,  the  security 
required  for  commercial  success.  Non-intervention 
in  the  affairs  of  other  countries  was  the  principle 
which,  if  adhered  to,  would  secure  alike  the  dignity 
of  the  Crown,  the  safety  of  the  kingdom,  as  well  as 
strengthen  the  nation's  influence  for  good  upon  the 
opinion  of  the  world.  Non-intervention,  however,  did 
not  mean  that  diplomacy  should  fall  into  desuetude. 
On  the  contrary,  the  cause  of  international  well-being 
and  peace  would  be  best  promoted  by  an  ably-manned 
foreign  service,  whose  agents  abroad  might  be  trusted 
to  send  home  the  best  information  procurable  on  all 
matters  of  social  and  commercial,  as  well  as  political 
interest.  A  foreign  programme  exactly  applicable  to 
individual  cases  that  might  arise  obviously  could  not 
be  drawn  up  beforehand.  The  queen  was  respect- 

*  Life  of  the  Second  Earl  Granmlle^  vol.  i.  p.  49. 
306 


Reaction  to  Intervention 

fully  asked  to  bear  in  mind  that  a  single  unforeseen 
event  might,  like  a  move  on  a  chess-board,  necessitate 
counter  arrangements  totally  different  from  those 
originally  contemplated.  That  the  Foreign  Secretary, 
dutifully  co-operating  with  his  colleague,  came  off  from 
all  his  court  examinations  with  flying  colours  may 
be  judged  from  the  fact  that,  on  the  Liberals  going 
out  in  February  1852,  the  queen  emphasised  her 
confidence  in  the  retiring  minister,  while  the  Prime 
Minister  called  him  one  of  the  best  Foreign  Secretaries 
the  country  ever  had. 

The  short-lived  Conservative  administration  of 
Lord  Derby  for  ten  months  in  1852  preceded  that  of 
Aberdeen  first,  and  of  Palmerston  afterwards.  In  it 
the  Foreign  Office  was  entrusted  to  an  amiable  and 
capable  epicurean  nobleman,  Lord  Malmesbury,  born 
into  diplomacy,  and  a  son  of  the  peer  who  figured 
so  prominently  and  frequently  in  the  international 
transactions  of  the  Napoleonic  era.  Known  through- 
out Europe  by  the  name  of  "Tamarang,"  he  was 
welcomed  to  his  new  position  by  the  whole  corps 
diplomatique,  with  the  exception  of  a  single  small 
but  very  active  clique.  This  consisted  of  the 
Orleanist  partisans,  led  by  the  clever  and  agreeable 
Belgian  minister,  Van  de  Weyer ;  Madame  Van  de 
Weyer,  an  American  heiress,  made  their  pleasant  house 
at  Windsor  a  social  power  during  the  second  half 
of  the  last  century.  Like  Palmerston,  Malmesbury 
had  lived  intimately  with  Napoleon  III.  during  his 
early  London  days ;  he  therefore  always  knew  that 
the  prince  had  accepted  the  republican  presidency 
as  a  stepping-stone  to  the  Empire.  He  remained 
Foreign  Secretary  just  long  enough  to  witness  the 

307 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

event  he  had  expected.  One  of  his  last  official  acts 
was,  on  the  ist  of  December  1852,  to  announce  in  Par- 
liament the  British  recognition  of  the  new  French  ruler 
as  the  Emperor  Napoleon  III.  The  exact  title  chosen 
had  given  offence  at  the  conservative  Russian  court, 
because  it  seemed  to  imply  an  hereditary  right  in  the 
Bonaparte  family,  and  to  ignore  as  a  mere  parenthesis 
the  interval  of  Bourbon  or  Orleanist  monarchy  between 
the  First  Empire  of  1804  and  its  reproduction  forty- 
eight  years  later.  This  subject  gave  rise  to  many 
communications  between  the  Foreign  Office  in  Lord 
Malmesbury's  time  and  our  embassy  in  Paris,  then 
under  Lord  Cowley — a  man,  to  quote  an  expression 
used  to  me  by  the  late  Lord  Granville,  "  born  to 
be  an  ambassador,  perfectly  straightforward  him- 
self, but  unfailingly  quick  to  detect  guile  or  duplicity 
in  others."  His  interviews  at  the  Tuileries  were  satis- 
factory ;  he  was  able  to  send  home  the  new  emperor's 
assurance  that  the  numeral  "III."  conveyed  no  idea 
of  hereditary  right,  and  that  he  recognised  as  valid 
all  that  had  been  accomplished  in  France  since  the 
days  of  his  famous  uncle.  At  the  same  time, 
Cowley  confirmed  an  impression,  long  since  conveyed 
to  Malmesbury  by  personal  intimacy  with  Louis 
Napoleon,  that  the  new  emperor  was  bent  on  sig- 
nalising his  reign  by  a  European  re-settlement,  which 
should  supersede  that  of  Vienna  in  1815.  Lord 
Malmesbury  embodied  these  ideas  in  a  memo- 
randum never  published,  but  shown  to  me  privately 
some  years  since.  Granville's  ministerial  term  had 
introduced  as  Under-Secretary  a  man  afterwards  to 
be  much  heard  of  in  foreign  politics,  A.  H.  Layard  ; 
his  place  under  Malmesbury  was  filled  by  the  then 

308 


Reaction  to  Intervention 

Lord  Stanley,  who  as  fifteenth  Earl  of  Derby 
was  eventually  himself  to  become  head  of  the 
department. 

Amongthe  ForeignOffice  appointments  and  changes 
made  by  Lord  Malmesbury,  not  the  least  interesting 
and  sagacious  was  the  choice  of  his  private  secretary, 
Henry  Drummond  Wolff.  He  had  entered  the  office 
at  the  age  of  sixteen,  as  a  junior  clerk  in  Palmerston's 
second  term.  Palmerston  thought  his  clever  pen 
might  be  very  useful  on  the  Whig  side,  and  made 
him  more  than  one  handsome  offer.  The  then  Mr 
Wolff,  however,  never  swerved  from  his  Conservative 
allegiance.  Malmesbury Js  confidence  in  this  gentleman 
was  shown  by  his  selection  for  more  than  one  informal 
mission,  about  the  postal  service  and  other  matters, 
to  Paris  during  the  Second  Empire.*  As  Secretary 
to  the  British  Government  of  the  Ionian  Islands 
(1859-62),  he  had  much  to  do  with  the  arrangements 
for  offering  the  Greek  Crown  to  Queen  Victoria's 
second  son,  Prince  Alfred,  as  well  as  for  ceding  the 
islands  to  Greece. 

Before  the  beginning  of  Lord  Cromer's  mission  to 
Cairo,  the  Foreign  Office  under  Lord  Salisbury  had 
been  disposed  to  regard  Egypt  as  an  incubus.  Sir  H. 
D.  Wolff  was  sent  in  1887  to  Constantinople  about  its 
evacuation.  The  attitude  of  France  and  Russia  wrecked 
the  proposal.  Both  now  and  during  his  later  Secretary- 
ship of  State  (1859)  Malmesbury  displayed  coolness, 
foresight  and  a  politic  accessibility  to  the  Liberal  ideas 
of  his  recent  predecessors.  In  1852  the  plots  against 

*  These  references  are  not  particularised  because  Sir  H.  Drummond 
Wolffs  recent  autobiography  contains  the  interesting  and  instructive 
details  concerning  them. 

309 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

Napoleon  III.  brought  French  demands  that  England 
should  advocate  the  surrender  of  political  refugees  by 
Switzerland.  The  friction  between  Paris  and  London 
was  long  and  severe.  Malmesbury 's  policy  helped  to 
promote  the  common  consent  of  the  two  peoples,  which 
averted  the  apparently  inevitable  rupture.  So,  too, 
some  ten  years  later.  Between  1859  and  1862  Napoleon 
III.  had  committed  himself  to  Italian  autonomy.  Count 
Buol  on  the  other  hand  had  declared  Austria's  re- 
solution to  stand  upon  the  settlement  of  1815  ;  in 
doing  so,  he  spoke  of  the -English  court's  Austrian 
sympathies.  Malmesbury  knew  that  Gladstone's 
Neapolitan  Letters  and  the  enthusiasm  evoked  by 
Garibaldi  had  doomed  the  Austrian  occupation  of 
Lombardy.  The  Liberal  tradition  established  by  Can- 
ning and  perpetuated  by  Palmerston  at  the  Foreign 
Office,  had  on  this  point  secured  a  continuity  of 
policy  whichever  party  might  be  in  power.  A 
predisposition  in  favour  of  a  people  struggling  to 
be  free,  notwithstanding  palace  preferences,  had 
taken  its  place  among  the  traditions  of  the  Foreign 
Office.  Then  came  in  quick  succession  the  French 
victories  of  Magenta,  of  Solferino  and  the  confinement 
of  Austria  within  the  Quadrilateral.  Thus  far  our 
Foreign  Minister  had  gratified  alike  the  palace,  the 
public  and  Napoleon  III.,  by  omitting  nothing  which 
could  localise  the  Italian  war  and  prevent  its  becoming 
a  general  one.  The  court  now  sent  a  decisive 
message  to  the  Foreign  Office.  As  a  consequence 
Malmesbury,  while  himself  true  to  the  line  of  neut- 
rality, gave  the  Tuileries  a  strong  hint  that,  if  peace 
were  not  speedily  concluded,  England  might  not  be 
able  to  prevent  the  march  on  Paris  of  Prussia  and  of 

310 


Reaction  to  Intervention 

her  German  allies.  The  result  was  the  peace  of 
Villafranca,  signed  nth  July  1859. 

This  treaty  was  facilitated  by  the  equal  anxiety  of 
the  conqueror  and  the  conquered  for  a  cessation  from 
war.  Its  important  connection  with  the  international 
politics  of  all  the  Western  Powers  calls  for  a  few 
further  words  now.  Nationally,  not  less  than  diplo- 
matically, Great  Britain  was  for  the  completion  of 
Italian  unity.  The  Villafranca  instrument,  though  a 
real  step  in  that  direction,  did  less,  not  only  than 
Cavour,  but  than  English  statesmanship  had  hoped. 
Mad  with  mortified  vanity,  as  well  as  baffled  patriotism, 
Cavour  scornfully  resigned  rather  than  accept  the  peace. 
Even  the  London  Foreign  Office,  through  our  Paris 
ambassador,  Cowley,  protested  against  the  Villafranca 
terms.  Palmerston,  now  at  the  head  of  affairs,  de- 
nounced them  to  the  French  Foreign  Minister,  Per- 
signy.  In  language  as  strong  as  any  that  could  have 
been  used  by  Cavour  himself,  Lord  John  Russell,  writ- 
ing to  Vienna,  vetoed  the  preponderance  secured  to 
Austria  in  the  new  Italian  confederation  which  the 
Villafranca  treaty  created. 

To  smooth  matters  over  for  the  moment  his 
favourite  device  of  a  congress  was  proposed  by  the 
French  Emperor.  The  unpublished  history  of  the  con- 
gress that  did  not  take  place,  is  notable  for  the 
reappearance  as  a  diplomatic  agency  of  the  pamphlet 
which  had  figured  so  largely  in  that  capacity  at  an 
earlier  time.  The  pamphleteer  was  only  the  mouth- 
piece of  Napoleon  III.  himself;  that  monarch,  the 
world  now  heard,  was  the  true  friend  of  the  Church  ; 
as  such  he  counselled  Pope  Pius  IX.  to  renounce  his 
threat  of  flight  and  to  remain  in  Rome.  Let  him, 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

however,  surrender  the  ecclesiastical  territory  out- 
side the  city.  By  so  doing  he  would  gain  in  spiri- 
tual authority  much  more  than  he  lost  in  temporal 
power.  The  French  emperor  acquainted  Queen 
Victoria  with  his  responsibility  for  this  composition  ; 
he  also,  through  his  cousin,  Prince  Napoleon,  told  the 
Sardinian  minister  that  the  pamphlet  was  his  method 
of  shelving  the  congress  and  bringing  himself  into 
line  with  England.  Queen  Victoria  had  rebuked 
Palmerston's  anti- Austrian  tactics  in  1849  ;  when,  in 
1860,  accepting  the  congress,  she  stipulated  for  freedom 
to  Italy  in  choosing  its  Constitution.  Anglo-French 
diplomacy  was  balked  of  its  congress  ;  it  had  opened  that 
political  campaign  for  a  united  Italy  which  did  more  than 
all  the  previous  military  movements  that  preceded  it. 

The  two  months  separating  the  first  foreign 
ministry  of  Malmesbury  from  that  of  Clarendon, 
witnessed  Russell's  occupancy  of  the  place  from  which 
in  1851  he  had  dislodged  Palmerston.  Russell,  as  an 
ex- Prime  Minister,  accepted  the  department  reluctantly, 
and  only  after  Lord  Lansdowne  had  reminded  him 
that  Wellington  also  had  taken  foreign  affairs  after 
being  Prime  Minister.  Russell  held  the  position  for 
only  two  months,  and  resigned  it  to  his  successor,  2 1  st 
February  1853. 

Clarendon's  foreign  ministry  was  famous  chiefly  for 
the  Crimean  War.  As  regards  that  struggle,  its  diplo- 
matic preliminaries  and  associations  alone  need  be 
mentioned  here.  A  treaty  with  the  Porte  in  1 740  had 
enabled  France  to  secure  for  the  Latin  Church  the  pos- 
session and  custody  of  the  sacred  shrines  in  Palestine. 
Profound  religious  indifference  came  over  Western 

Europe  in  the  second  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  ; 

312 


Reaction  to  Intervention 

it  did  not  affect  Eastern  Europe.  The  sacred  places  at 
Jerusalem,  neglected  by  the  Latins,  were  sedulously 
cared  for  by  the  Greeks.  There  was  thus  a  conflict  be- 
tween the  national  rights  established  by  treaty  and  those 
given  by  custom.  The  nineteenth  century's  spiritual 
revival  awoke  French  interest  in  the  consecrated 
antiquities  of  Syria.  As  President  of  the  Republic, 
Louis  Napoleon  had  already  restored  the  pope  to 
Rome  ;  in  May  1850,  he  asserted  by  arms  the  French 
claim  to  confirm  the  Latin  monks  in  the  ownership 
of  the  scriptural  spots  and  relics.  The  whole  question 
was  referred  by  the  Porte  to  a  mixed  commission, 
whose  conclusions  were  given  to  France  in  a  letter,  and 
in  a  firman  from  Constantinople  to  the  Greeks.  The 
two  documents  contradicted  each  other  ;  this  might 
have  been  expected  from  the  fact  that  the  object  of  the 
letter  was  to  satisfy  France,  of  the  firman  to  propitiate 
Russia.  Now  began  the  dispute  between  Paris  and 
St  Petersburg.  Louis  Napoleon's  diplomacy  aimed  at 
entangling  England  in  the  discussion.  Between  the 
courts  and  people  of  Paris  and  St  Petersburg  a  lasting 
bitterness  had  grown  out  of  the  ex-president's  seizure 
of  the  Imperial  dignity,  as  has  already  been  said,  by  the 
style  of  Napoleon  III.  Refusing  to  follow  the  example 
of  the  other  Powers,  the  Czar  persisted  in  addressing 
the  new  French  monarch  not  as  "  Monsieur  mon 
frere,"  but  as  "  Mon  cher  ami." 

The  next  step  at  this  stage  of  the  transactions  was 
the  mission  of  a  Turkish  agent,  Afif  Bey,  to  Jerusalem, 
for  the  purpose  of  executing  the  compromise  by  which 
the  Porte  thought  to  settle  the  matter.  Instead, 
however,  of  affairs  being  brought  nearer  to  an  arrange- 
ment, the  Greeks  were  furious  at  the  Turkish  conces- 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

sions  to  the  Latins  ;  the  Russian  Government  prepared 
an  army  corps  for  active  service  and  sent  Prince 
Menschikoff  ostensibly  on  a  pacific  errand  to  Con- 
stantinople. Not  till  some  time  later  did  it  become 
known  that  the  most  important  business  entrusted  to 
the  Czar's  emissary  was  secret.  It  consisted,  indeed, 
of  a  demand  that  the  Porte  should  unconditionally 
acknowledge,  by  a  clandestine  treaty,  Russia  as  the 
protector  of  the  Greek  Church  throughout  the  whole 
of  the  Sultan's  dominions.  This  discovery  was  made 
by  the  new  British  ambassador  to  the  Porte,  Sir 
Stratford  Canning  (Lord  Stratford  de  Redcliffe).  He 
reached  Constantinople  a  little  later  than  Menschikoff 
in  the  February  of  1853.  Menschikoffs  presence  at 
the  Turkish  capital  had  made  peace  difficult ;  Sir 
Stratford  Canning's  rendered  war  certain.  Meanwhile, 
from  the  official  point  of  view,  of  the  relations  between 
the  Porte  and  the  Czar,  the  purely  diplomatic  dispute 
had  narrowed  itself  to  a  single  issue — the  exact  con- 
struction of  the  seventh  clause,  closely  connected, 
however,  as  that  was  with  the  fourteenth  clause  of  the 
Treaty  of  Kutchuk-Kainardji  between  the  Porte  and 
Catherine  II.  of  Russia  in  1774.  These  articles, 
collectively  if  not  singly,  empowered  the  Turkish 
ambassador  at  the  Russian  capital  to  make  from  time 
to  time  such  representations  as  were  necessary  in  the 
interests  of  the  Sultan's  Christian  subjects.  Did  that 
provision  justify  the  comprehensive  ultimatum  pre- 
sented to  the  Porte  by  Menschikoff? 

Such,  in  a  nutshell,  was  the  essentially  diplomatic 
difference.  Mutual  jealousies  and  recriminations  on  the 
part  of  the  diplomatists  of  the  Czar  and  the  Sultan  in- 
creased the  difficulties  of  pacification  and  enabled  the 


Reaction  to  Intervention 

war-party  to  twist  a  personal  squabble  between  Menschi- 
koff  and  the  Forte's  Foreign  Minister  into  a  slight  upon 
the  Sultan.  When  the  new  British  ambassador  was 
still  on  his  way  from  England,  the  Grand  Vizier  induced 
the  British  chargt  d 'affaires,  Colonel  Rose,  to  take 
steps  for  preventing  a  Russian  attack  on  Turkey  by 
bringing  the  English  Mediterranean  fleet  to  Vourla. 
Private  and  personal  reasons,  presently  to  be  men- 
tioned, rendered  it  certain  that  the  effect  of  Stratford 
Canning's  arrival  at  a  place  so  full  of  explosive  material 
would  be  as  a  lighted  match  in  a  powder-magazine  ; 
Canning  had  not  forgotten  the  Czar's  refusal  to  receive 
him  as  English  ambassador  on  a  former  occasion — in 
1833.  Before  going  to  Constantinople  in  1853,  he 
told  Lord  Bath  he  should  now  have  his  revenge 
against  the  Russian  emperor  by  fomenting  war.* 
From  the  day  on  which  the  great  Eltchi  established 
himself  at  Pera,  he  became  the  personification  not 
only  of  English  policy  throughout  the  whole  crisis, 
but  of  Turkish  also.  The  Turkish  emperor's  chan- 
cellor, the  controller-in-chief  of  the  British  diplomatic 
machine — he  was  both  of  these  as  well  as  ambassador. 
Louis  Napoleon,  the  real  disposer  of  the  diplomatic 
movements  going  forward  on  his  side,  now  brought 
France  and  Russia  at  sea  within  striking  distance  of 
each  other.  Hitherto,  and  during  part  of  February 
1853,  he  had  openly  courted  no  rupture  of  peace; 
he  had  indeed  removed  one  danger  of  war  by  sub- 
stituting as  his  representative  at  Constantinople  De 
la  Cour,  till  then  French  minister  at  Berlin,  for  the 
fiery  and  impractical  Lavalette.  Directly,  however, 
he  knew  of  British  ships  being  on  the  move,  he  sent 

*  Malmesbury's  Memoirs  of  an  Ex-Minister,  vol.  i.  p.  425. 
315 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

his  own  fleet  to  the  classic  Salamis.  The  Forte's 
concessions  to  Russia  and  France  had  now  practically 
ended  the  quarrel  about  the  holy  places  ;  they  had  left 
Turkey  without  a  single  ill-wisher  except  Russia,  for 
the  Sultan's  European  provinces  had  been  tranquillised 
and  Austria  propitiated  by  the  withdrawal,  on  British 
advice,  of  Omar  Pasha  from  insurrectionary  Mon- 
tenegro. 

The  British  ambassador  at  St  Petersburg,  Sir 
Hamilton  Seymour,  not  as  yet  the  recipient  of  the 
Czar's  conversational  menaces,  and  the  Russian 
ambassador  in  London,  Baron  Brunnow,  were  both 
working  for  peace  as  strongly  as  Stratford  Canning  at 
Constantinople  was  pressing  on  war.  Nicholas  had 
first  broached  personally  to  Aberdeen  and  Peel  in  1844 
his  idea  of  the  Turk  being  "  the  sick  man  of  Europe," 
and  his  wish  to  co-operate  with  England  rather  than 
France  in  disposing  of  the  Turkish  estate.  England 
was  to  have  Crete  or  Egypt,  or  both.  In  1852  he 
reopened  this  matter  with  Seymour,  adding  that  while 
he  did  not  want  Constantinople  for  himself,  any  other 
Power  must  be  kept  from  it.  "Therefore,"  he  con- 
cluded, "my  wish  now  is  the  same  as  England's,  to 
retain  for  the  present  the  sick  man  in  his  old  domains 
and  to  keep  things  generally  as  they  are." 

Affairs  were  now  precipitated  by  Menschikoffs 
presentation  to  the  Porte  of  an  ultimatum  for  accept- 
ance within  five  days.  Russia's  final  terms  repeated 
in  a  more  emphatic  form  the  Czar's  demand  for 
universal  and  unconditional  recognition  as  protector 
of  the  Sultan's  Turkish  subjects.  The  Porte  referred 
the  claim  to  the  British  embassy ;  Stratford  Canning 
ordered  its  summary  rejection.  Now  came  the 

316 


Reaction  to  Intervention 

entrance  of  the   Dardanelles  by  the  English  fleet  to 
hold    itself  at    our   ambassador's    disposal ;    Russian 
invasion  of  the  Danubian  principalities  followed.     This 
last  incident   led   to   the  weary   series   of  diplomatic 
communications  between  London,  Paris  and  St  Peters- 
burg.    It  was  closed  in  the  late  winter  or  early  spring 
of  1854  by  Lord   Clarendon's   statement,  that  if  the 
Russian  troops  did  not  recross  the  Pruth  before  the 
end   of  April,    it   would    be    considered  by  England 
as   the  Czar's  declaration  of  war.     The  conduct,  the 
intrigues,  the  leaders'  quarrels  and  the  vicissitudes  of  the 
struggle  belong  to  general  history,  and  need  not  be  retold 
here.     Hostilities  had  in  effect  begun  before  diplomacy 
despaired  of  peace.     At  our  own  Foreign  Office,  Lord 
Clarendon  with  his  staff,  including  permanent  Under- 
secretary Hammond,  and   political    Under-Secretary 
Lord  Henry  Petty,  afterwards  Lord  Lansdowne,  was  at 
work  night  and  day.     Not  less  busy  were  our  own  chief 
embassies  on  the  Continent  or  the  chanceries  of  foreign 
Powers.    Yet  at  this  very  time  the  combatants  were  actu- 
ally pressing  to  the  field  with  the  speed  and  spirit  of 
knights  pricking  to  the  tournament.     The  French  and 
English  fleets  were  riding  at  their  anchorage  in  Besika 
Bay.   The  great  Eltchi,  in  the  manner  already  described, 
had  vetoed  the  Porte's  compliance  with  the  Czar's  last 
orders.     By  i7th  June  1853  Lord  Clarendon  had  ar- 
ranged a  friendly  understanding  with  Austria.    This  was 
described   at   the  time  by  one  of  Clarendon's  prede- 
cessors,   Granville,    as    "  only    a    step    in    the   right 
direction,"  because  it  did  not,  as  some  had  hoped  it 
would   do,    include    Prussia.     The   truth   is   that  our 
diplomacy  at  Berlin  was  baffled  by  Count  Bismarck, 
then  beginning  his  career.     To  him  the  true  Prussian 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

policy  seemed  anti- English  and  pro- Russian.  Thus 
began  the  rapprochement  between  Berlin  and  St 
Petersburg  that  eventually  conduced  to  the  successes 
of  1866  and  1870.  At  this  time  the  grouping  of  the 
European  Powers  was  as  follows  :  England  had  joined 
herself  to  France  by  definite  treaties  for  a  specific 
purpose.  With  Sardinia  she  had  a  good  understand- 
ing since  the  Italian  rising  against  Austria  in  1849. 
In  1853,  Austria  had  become  England's  ally,  but  was 
already  negotiating  a  defensive  alliance  with  Prussia. 

In  the  summer  of  1853  the  Austro- English  entente 
showed  itself  in  the  arrangement  for  a  conference  at 
Vienna.  The  outcome  of  this,  it  was  hoped,  might  be 
some  expedient  for  saving  the  honour  and  satisfying 
the  reasonable  demands  of  Turk  and  Czar.  To  that 
end,  on  3Oth  June  1853,  France  contributed  a  draft 
Note  for  acceptance  both  at  Constantinople  and  at 
St  Petersburg.  At  the  beginning  of  July  England 
came  forward  with  a  draft  treaty.  The  Powers 
assembled  at  Vienna  were  asked  to  make  their  choice 
between  the  two  documents.  Austria  and  Prussia 
expressed  their  preference  for  the  Note  ;  this,  there- 
fore, with  a  few  alterations,  was  sent  simultaneously 
to  the  Porte  and  to  the  Czar.  The  Czar  promptly 
accepted  it.  The  Sultan's  refusal  in  fact  though  not 
in  form  was  due  to  the  British  ambassador  at  Constan- 
tinople, who  had  already  devised  a  plan  of  his  own 
for  arranging  the  business  ;  Stratford  Canning  indeed 
had  by  this  time  not  only  drawn  up  an  alternative 
Note  of  his  own  ;  he  had  secured  its  favourable 
reception  by  the  four  European  Powers  as  well  as  by 
Turkey  herself.  The  messenger  who  brought  the 
Vienna  Note  from  the  Austrian  to  the  Turkish  capital 


Reaction  to  Intervention 

had  actually  crossed  on  his  way  the  bearer  to  Count 
Buol  at  Vienna  of  the  competitive  document  issued  on 
his  own  responsibility  by  the  English  representative 
at  the   Porte.      Clarendon  told  his   ambassador  that 
he   could    not    acquiesce   in   this   individual    attempt 
to    override    the    results    of  the    Vienna    Conference 
and  to  undo  the  work  of  the  British  delegate,  Lord 
John    Russell.     Stratford   Canning   now  changed  his 
tactics   with   the  Sultan  and   urged   adhesion   to  the 
Vienna    document.     The    Porte,    however,    well   ac- 
quainted with  his  private  views  on  the  subject,  valued 
the  personal  more  than  the  official  opinion  of  the  great 
Eltchi.      Turkey   avoided   refusing   the    Note   point- 
blank,    but   insisted   on   modifications   certain   to     be 
denied  by  Russia.     The   point  of  the  changes  next 
stipulated  for  by  the  Porte  was  such  a  definition  of  the 
Kutchuk-Kainardji   and    the   Adrianople   treaties    as 
would  have  given  the  Sultan  himself  instead  of  the 
Czar  the  personal  protectorate  of  his  Christian  sub- 
jects.     Russian  diplomacy,   directed  by  Menschikoff, 
aimed  at  assimilating  the  Czar's   tutelary  right  over 
Greek  Christians  throughout  the  Turkish  Empire  to 
that  exercised  by  the  Austrian  emperor  over  Roman 
Catholics  throughout  Turkey  in   Europe.     To  Strat- 
ford  Canning  this  demand  seemed  a  dangerous  and 
needless  extension  of  the  Czar's  autocratic  prerogatives. 
Hence  the  limitations  on  which  the  Porte  now  insisted. 
Meanwhile,  in  April  1854,  a  fresh  diplomatic  move- 
ment had  been  made.     The  four  Powers  had  agreed 
on  a  protocol  declaring  their  intention  to  maintain  the 
integrity  of  the   Turkish  Empire  as  essential  to  the 
European  equilibrium  ;  they  would  also  secure  the  civil 
and  religious  liberty  of  the  Sultan's  Christian  subjects. 

319 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

The  fighting  alliance  between  England  and  France 
was  followed  by  a  defensive  alliance  between  Austria 
and  Prussia.  The  protocol  proceeded  to  offer  to  the 
Czar  certain  suggestions  too  familiar,  by  the  name  of 
the  Four  Points,  to  call  for  recapitulation  now.  The 
general  tendency  of  these  recommendations  was  to 
substitute  common  European  action  for  that  of  the 
Czar,  not  only  in  relation  to  his  Christian  subjects,  but 
his  general  dealings  with  Turkey.  The  Four  Points 
were  nominally  accepted  by  Nicholas  as  offering  the 
only  way  of  escape  from  the  danger  he  chiefly 
dreaded,  the  accession  of  Austria  and  Prussia  to  the 
hostile  European  confederation.  At  the  same  time  he 
urged  the  resumption  of  the  Vienna  conferences,  but  died 
before  his  real  disposition  towards  the  Four  Points  could 
be  tested  or  the  conferences  yield  any  definite  result. 

As  at  Utrecht  in  1713,  the  Vienna  Conference  of 
1853  sat  more  than  once ;  the  second  Vienna  meeting 
was  held  at  least  a  full  year  after  the  first.  At  the  re- 
assemblage  of  the  plenipotentiaries  in  1855  (5th  March 
to  4th  June)  the  genius  of  diplomacy  ventured  on  a 
novel  relaxation  in  its  social  habits ;  this,  which  might 
have  disgusted  the  stately  conductors  of  the  Vienna 
Congress  forty  years  before,  promoted  a  genial  temper 
among  the  statesmen  of  1855.  The  French  minister, 
De  Bourqueney,  sighed  for  a  cigar ;  tobacco,  as  a 
help  to  the  public  work  of  high  politics,  had  not 
then  come  into  fashion ;  he  therefore  suggested  an 
hour's  adjournment  that  the  diplomatists  might  enjoy  a 
quiet  smoke.  Thus  far  the  Turkish  ambassador  had 
not  opened  his  mouth.  He  now  sprang  to  his  feet, 
seconded  the  proposal,  and  walking  off  with  his  French 

colleague,    lit   up   directly  he  had  passed  out  of  the 

320 


Reaction  to  Intervention 

council-room.     The    British   delegate   denied   himself 
the  consolations  of  nicotine  ;  yet  some  such  solace  he 
must  have  needed  under  the  pressure  of  his  anxieties 
on  the  spot,  aggravated  as  these  were  by  unsympa- 
thetic comments  on  his  conduct  at  home.     Clarendon 
was  hourly  expressing,  to  his  friend  and  predecessor 
Granville,  disgust  with  the  "  devilries  at  Vienna,"  and 
the   nobbling   of   Lord   John  Russell  by  the  French 
delegate,  now  Drouyn  de  1'Huys.     Russell  had  from 
the   first   disagreed   with   his   colleagues  at  home    in 
himself  wishing  to  force  the  Vienna  Note  upon  the 
Porte.     At  this  time  the  friendly  relations  of  England 
with  Austria  had  been  cemented  by  more  than  one  treaty. 
There  seemed  a  prospect  of  other  states  acceding  to  the 
Anglo- Austrian  compact.     In  the  December  of  1853 
Palmerston's   disgust    at    Aberdeen's    slackness    had 
caused   him   to  resign   his   seat  in  the  Cabinet ;    he 
resumed  it  in  the  February  of  1854  on  the  despatch 
of  the  Anglo-French  ultimatum  to  St  Petersburg,  and 
of  the  English  fleet  to  the  Black  Sea.     The  Crimean 
War  had  reached  its  sixth  month.     The  episode  of  the 
Four  Points  had  resulted  in  a  closer  diplomatic  in- 
timacy than    before   between    England   and   Austria. 
The  relation  also  in  which  England  stood  to  Sardinia 
as  protagonist  in  the  drama  of  Italian  liberation  from 
the    Austrian    yoke,     already    one    of    the     French 
emperor's  known  projects,  formed  a  fresh  link  in  the 
union  that  held  together  Great   Britain  and  France. 
These   circumstances   seemed    favourable   for    British 
policy  at   the  Vienna  conference   of   1855.      As   our 
plenipotentiary,   Lord  John  Russell  brought  with  him 
to    the   Austrian  capital    the   authority   naturally  be- 
longing  to   a   former   head   of  the    London  Foreign 
x  321 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

Office.  The  complaint  against  him  in  both  Houses 
of  Parliament,  but  especially  in  the  Peers,  then  parti- 
cularly keen  on  discussing  European  affairs,  was  that 
proposals  put  forward  by  him  at  the  conference  as 
his  own  were  really  of  French  or  Austrian  origin. 
The  subtlety  which  was  one  of  his  intellectual  charac- 
teristics showed  itself  in  his  support  of  complex, 
confusing  and  impracticable  arrangements  for  regulating 
the  navigation  of  the  Black  Sea  and  the  Dardanelles. 
This  was  the  rock  which  wrecked  the  Vienna  peace- 
makers and  dimmed  at  least  one  great  reputation. 
The  single  point  in  1855  waiting  to  be  settled  was  the 
position  of  Russia  in  the  Black  Sea.  There  was  pro- 
fessed a  general  agreement  that  Russian  preponderance 
in  these  waters  must  be  prevented.  Limitation  of  the 
number  of  Russian  vessels  in  the  Euxine,  counterpoise, 
counterpoise  and  limitation  mixed — such  were  some  of 
the  seven  competitive  plans  proposed.*  To  balance  the 
number  of  Russian  ships  by  an  equal  number  of  ships 
belonging  to  the  Powers,  formed  the  suggestion  of  the 
Austrian  plenipotentiary,  Count  Buol ;  it  was  supported 
by  the  French  delegate,  Drouyn  de  1'Huys,  and,  for  a  time 
at  least,  by  Russell  for  England.  Then  came  quarrels 
and  recriminations  between  these  delegates.  Pro- 
fiting by  their  quarrels,  Russia  refused  any  interference 
with  her  status  in  the  Euxine.  Palmerston  had  never 
believed  in  any  of  the  Black  Sea  expedients  put  forward. 
The  conference  broke  up  fruitlessly,  4th  June  1855. 

*  The  final  Black  Sea  proposition  was  Count  Buol's,  that  if  Russia 
exceeded  a  certain  allowance  of  ships,  the  Powers  might  at  once  raise  their 
naval  quota  in  the  Black  Sea  by  the  amount  of  the  Russian  excess. 
Vexed  at  his  failure,  Buol  charged  Palmerston  with  having  got  up  the 
whole  war  to  give  Sardinia  a  chance  of  showing  herself  off.  Drouyn  de 
1'Huys  also  accused  Russell  of  dishonourably  deserting  him. 

322 


Reaction  to  Intervention 

After  the  conference,  the  experience  common  with 
England  during  the  Seven  Years'  War  and  the 
Napoleonic  War  was  about  to  repeat  itself.  The 
British  Allies,  or  at  least  the  chief  of  them,  went 
on  strike.  Already  France  had  broken  faith  by 
separate  negotiations  with  Russia.  Napoleon  III. 
now  decided  on  withdrawing  100,000  men  from  the 
Crimea ;  he  had,  as  has  been  said  above,  first  thought 
of  establishing  his  dynasty  on  the  basis  not  of  an 
English  alliance  against  Russia,  but  of  a  resettlement 
of  Europe  in  the  interests  of  France.  Early,  however, 
in  1855,  Louis  Napoleon  reverted  to  the  precedent  of 
his  famous  uncle's  direct  communication  with  the 
British  sovereign  in  1801  by  flinging  his  professional 
diplomatists  over  and  himself  writing  to  Queen 
Victoria  that  he  wished  above  all  things  to  act  in 
accord  with  England.  In  Paris,  however,  the  war  had 
never  been  popular  as  it  was  in  England  ;  any  real 
attempt  to  continue  it  would  have  jeopardised  rather 
than  strengthened  the  Imperial  dynasty.  In  the  summer 
of  1855,  Cowley,  our  French  ambassador,  wrote  home 
to  Clarendon  that  Paris  was  desperately  sick  of  the 
Anglo-French  adventure  in  arms  and  its  disappoint- 
ments to  French  patriotism. 

During  the  next  November,  France  and  Austria 
united  to  concert  terms  of  peace  with  Russia  with- 
out England's  knowledge.  Palmerston's  charac- 
teristically strong  remonstrance  and  threat,  that 
Britain  would,  if  need  be,  continue  the  war  alone, 
was  followed  by  a  peace-protocol  arranged  between 
the  Austrian  and  English  ambassadors  in  Paris. 
This  was  accepted  by  the  new  Czar  in  the  middle 
of  January  1856.  Next  month,  under  the  presidency 

323 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

of  Lord  Clarendon,  there  met  in  the  French  capital 
the  Congress  of  Paris.     Its  first  act,  on  the   25th  of 
February,  was  the  immediate  suspension  of  hostilities. 
Enough  has  been  already  said  about  the  doings 
of  diplomacy  during  the  progress  of  the  war.     Before 
passing  on  to  the  serious  work  of  peace-making,  a  word 
may  be  given  to  what  was  at  the  time  gravely  called  a 
diplomatic  mystery  of  a  ludicrous  kind  ;  the  laughable 
little  incident  is  not  generally  recorded  in  the  memoirs 
of  the  period.     The  sister,  it  must  be  explained,  of  the 
War  Minister,  Lord  Panmure,  had  married  a  certain 
W.  H.  Dowbiggin.     The  son  of  this  marriage,  Colonel 
Montague  Dowbiggin  (99th  regiment),  served  in  the 
Crimea,  and  was  naturally  an  object  of  interest  to  his 
uncle,  who  was  the  civil  head  of  the  army.     In  1853, 
Lord  Panmure  telegraphed  to  Lord  Raglan — "  Be  sure 
you  take  care  of  Dowb."     Somehow  or  other  these 
seven  words  found   their   way    into   the  newspapers. 
Seen  in  print,  they  excited  the  perplexed  speculation  of 
Europe,  from  the  Caucasus  to  Gibraltar  ;  at  last  one  of 
Gortschokoff's  staff  informed  Nesselrode's  private  secre- 
tary that  he  had  found  a  key  to  the  British  cipher. 
It  meant,  he  said,  nothing  less  than  that  an   Indian 
Maharajah,    from    enmity    to  Russia,  had   placed  his 
sword  at  the  disposal  of  the  British  queen.     When 
Delane  and  his  leader-writer,  afterward  his  successor, 
Thomas  Chenery,  made  their  trip  to  the  Crimea,  they 
were   beset  by  inquiries  and  theories  as   to  the  true 
significance  of  the  cryptogram  ;  they  could,  however, 
throw  no  light  on  the  matter  ;  it  really  puzzled,  they 
said,  the  English  press  and  public  quite  as  much  as 
the  Foreign  Offices  and  embassies  of  the  Continent. 
"  Dowb,"  who  brilliantly  justified   Panmure's  recom- 

324 


Reaction  to  Intervention 

mendation,  died  during  the  later  sixties  ;  he  left  by  his 
second  marriage  a  daughter,  who — such  is  the  irony 
of  fate — married  a  Russian  baron  of  great  wealth 
named  Tchihatchef,  a  clever  and  hospitable  savant 
residing  at  Florence.  After  her  husband's  death  the 
weekly  receptions  and  dinners  at  the  baronial  villa  were 
continued  with  every  charm  and  success  by  his  widow. 
Baron  Brunnow,  the  Russian  ambassador,  popular 
with  all  classes  in  England,  and  famous  for  his  re- 
markable likeness  to  Lord  Brougham,  had  now 
returned  to  London.  As  to  the  Czar's  terms  or 
objects,  his  lips  were  sealed,  both  on  his  official  visits 
to  Lord  Clarendon  and  his  appearances  in  society  ; 
he  really  knew  nothing  about  it  at  all ;  everything 
rested  with  his  imperial  master,  and  the  only 
person  who  had  ever  been  in  the  secret  of  that 
sovereign's  intentions  was  Count  Orloff,  the  Russian 
plenipotentiary  in  Paris.  A  private  letter  from  one 
who  assisted  at  the  congress  now  spoken  of,  says  Lord 
Clarendon,  the  president,  attracted  much  less  attention 
than  did  the  stately  and  majestic  grace  of  Prince 
Orloff  or  the  irresistible  charm  and  personal  fascination 
of  Julian  Fane,  then  a  rising  star  of  British  diplomacy, 
pleasant  in  manner,  quick  of  insight,  shrewd  in 
suggestion;  he  did  so  well  at  Paris  in  1856  that  im- 
mediately afterwards  he  was  moved  on  to  be  Secretary 
of  the  Legation  at  St  Petersburg.  The  game  to  be 
played  by  the  representatives  of  Austria  and  Russia  at 
the  meeting  soon  disclosed  the  malignity  of  both 
Powers  to  England.  The  settlement  of  Eastern 
Europe  evidently  seemed  to  them  a  secondary 
question  in  comparison  with  sowing  dissension  between 
England  and  France.  Here  at  least  Napoleon  III. 

325 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

showed  some  gratitude  to  the  country  where  in  the 
days  of  his  exile  he  had  received  kindness.  His  speech 
at  the  opening  of  the  Corps  Legislatif,  5th  March 
1856,  gave  prominence  to  two  points:  his  readiness 
to  continue  the  war  alone  had  negotiations  failed,  and 
his  adhesion  to  Great  Britain  as  ally.  The  merits  of 
their  work  did  not  preserve  from  great  obloquy  the 
two  men  who  during  this  period  chiefly  represented 
England  at  the  foreign  conferences. 

Russell's  indiscretion  at  Vienna  has  been  already 
mentioned.  Our  Paris  plenipotentiary,  Clarendon,  had 
been  unwise  enough  to  write  some  letters  to  the  Italian 
statesman  Cavour  that  brought  on  him  the  charge  of 
prolonging  the  Crimean  War  so  that  Sardinia,  as  the 
liberator  of  Italy,  might  have  the  opportunity  of  asserting 
herself.  On  another  minor  matter  there  was  a  second 
hitch.  A  dangerous  intimacy  now  seemed  to  unite  the 
diplomatists  of  Paris  and  St  Petersburg.  The  clauses 
about  the  Danubian  principalities  gave  Russia  a 
chance  of  strengthening  her  hold  in  that  part  of 
Europe  and  of  acquiring  the  Isle  of  Serpents  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Danube.  The  details  of  this  question 
might  have  wrecked  the  Paris  congress,  but  France 
and  England,  according  to  Lord  Malmesbury's 
account,*  came  forward  with  a  suggestion  that  any 
minutely  local  or  technical  points  might  if  necessary  be 
referred  to  a  meeting  of  the  plenipotentiaries  specially 
convened  for  the  purpose.  The  convention  arranged 
at  this  meeting  supplemented  the  treaty  of  3Oth  March 
1856  with  provisions  for  the  demarcation  of  the 
Bessarabian  frontier ;  for  the  evacuation  of  Moldavia 
and  Wallachia  by  Austrian  troops  ;  for  the  departure 

*  Memoirs  of  an  Ex-Minister,  vol  ii.  p.  53. 
326 


Reaction  to  Intervention 

of  the  British  squadron  from  the  Black  Sea  and  the 
Bosphorus  ;  and  for  replacing  under  Turkish  sover- 
eignty the  islands  in  the  delta  of  the  Danube.  Of 
that  delta  the  Isle  of  Serpents  was  now  declared  to  be 
an  appendage.  For  the  future  this  island  was  to  be  fur- 
nished with  a  lighthouse.  The  protocol  containing  these 
arrangements  was  to  have  the  force  of  a  convention. 

"  Protocol "  is  a  word  that  necessarily  often 
appears  in  the  present  work.  Its  uses  are  legion.  A 
complete  definition  of  it  would,  as  the  obliging  Head 
of  the  Treaty  Department  at  the  Foreign  Office  once 
said,  require  a  pamphlet  to  itself.  Sometimes  it 
means  a  record  of  proceedings  ;  at  other  times  it  is 
equivalent  to  a  record  of  ratifications  of  a  treaty  or 
convention.  Again,  in  such  a  convention  or  treaty 
some  particular  clause  may  be  modified  by  a  protocol 
attached  to  the  instrument.  In  popular  phrase, 
protocol  may  be  employed  as  a  synonym  for  the 
rough  draft  of  a  treaty  ;  that  use,  however,  is  quite  un- 
authorised. On  6th  January  1857,  the  protocol  now 
referred  to  was  signed  by  the  plenipotentiaries  of 
Great  Britain  (Lord  Cowley),  France  (Walewski), 
Austria  (Hubener),  Prussia  (Hatzfeldt),  Russia 
(Brunnow),  Sardinia  (Villamarina)  and  Turkey 
(Mehemed  Djemil).  This  was  not  the  only 
document  subsidiary  to  the  chief  and  central  con- 
vention. There  were  also  specific  agreements  be- 
tween the  individual  Powers.  Of  these  minor  treaties 
the  two  in  which  England  had  a  concern  were  a 
tripartite  treaty  between  Austria,  England,  France  and 
the  Porte,  guaranteeing  Turkish  integrity,  re- 
luctantly acceded  to  by  England  and  irresponsibly 
accepted  by  France.  The  other  arrangement,  initi- 

327 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

ated  at  the  London  Foreign  Office,  but  eventually 
acquiesced  in  by  the  other  Powers,  was  with  Sweden, 
who  pledged  herself  to  abstain  from  separate  com- 
pacts with  St  Petersburg ;  if  attacked,  she  was  to 
receive  assistance.  Another  group  of  provisions 
made  at  Paris  in  1856  related  to  the  subject  which, 
known  as  the  Armed  Neutrality,  had  caused  inter- 
national heart-burning  in  the  eighteenth  century.  By 
this  time  Great  Britain  had  given  up  her  earlier 
claims  against  neutrals.  She  now  formally  and  in 
principle  renounced  all  such  demands  ;  she  also  ac- 
cepted the  doctrine  that  free  ships  make  free  goods, 
though  only  on  the  condition,  purely  nominal  and 
never  fulfilled,  as  the  result  proved,  that  America 
renounced  privateering.  With  the  provisions  or 
signature  of  the  Treaty  of  Paris  *  the  United  States 
had  nothing  to  do.  England,  too,  with  her  allies 
entered  into  a  guarantee  for  securing  the  local 
privileges  of  the  Danubian  principalities  ;  this  was  the 
most  definitely  retrograde  movement  then  executed  by 
us  from  the  non-intervention  policy  which  Canning 
had  set  on  foot. 

The  diplomatic  results  of  the  Crimean  invasion 
alone  call  for  mention  here.  Europe  by  that  war 
took  upon  herself  the  responsibility  formerly  claimed 
by  the  Czar  of  securing  religious  toleration  for 
the  Sultan's  subjects.  The  Porte's  promises  of 
amendment  proved  worthless.  The  diplomatic 

*  The  peace  arrangements  afforded  another  instance  of  the  growing 
connection  between  diplomacy  and  finance.  The  millions  wanted  for 
the  war  expenses  by  the  Treasury  were  at  once  at  the  lowest  rate  of  in- 
terest advanced  by  the  Rothschilds.  Rival  financiers  were  ready  with 
offers  while  the  matter  was  in  actual  settlement  between  Whitehall  and 
New  Court. 

328 


Reaction  to  Intervention 

history  of  the  years  following  1856  records  the  pro- 
gressive undoing  of  the  results  arrived  at  by  the  Paris 
congress.  In  1860,  the  Christian  massacres  in  the 
Lebanon  gave  Napoleon  III.  an  excuse  for  the  military 
occupation  of  Syria.  In  1861,  the  activity  of  French 
diplomatists,  notwithstanding  the  apathy  of  the 
English,  enabled  the  two  Danubian  states,  Moldavia 
and  Wallachia,  to  form  by  their  union  the  principality 
of  Roumania.  In  1862,  Palmerston's  refusal  of 
Brunnow's  suggestion  to  support  those  strugglers  for 
freedom,  did  not  prevent  the  Servians  from  expelling 
the  Turkish  garrisons  and  forming  a  Constitution. 
In  1870,  with  the  connivance  of  Prussia,  the  Czar  told 
the  signatories  of  the  Paris  treaty  of  fourteen  years 
earlier  that  he  would  no  longer  be  bound  by  the  clause 
excluding  his  warships  from  the  Black  Sea.  Our  then 
ambassador  at  St  Petersburg,  Sir  Horace  Rumbold, 
ordered  from  home  to  present  the  English  protest 
against  this  step,  expressed  his  belief  that  had  we 
hinted  at  war,  nothing  more  would  have  been  heard  of 
the  subject.  The  purely  verbal  expostulation  had  of 
course  no  effect.  The  Powers  who  had  put  their 
names  to  the  Treaty  of  Paris  met  in  London  to  register 
the  Czar's  decision;  by  3ist  March  1871,  the  Black 
Sea  clauses  of  the  great  international  instrument  which 
had  dissolved  the  Vienna  conferences,  and  so  prolonged 
the  war,  were  by  European  agreement  abrogated. 

In  the  Balkan  Peninsula  all  warnings  of  events  had 
been  lost  on  the  Turk.  In  1875,  tne  exaction  of  their 
uttermost  farthing  by  Mohammedan  landlords  and  the 
extortions  of  tax-collectors  caused  a  rising  of  the 
Christian  peasantry  in  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina. 
This  was  attributed  to  Panslavonic  intrigue  ;  Slavonic 

329 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

emissaries  had  of  course  been  at  work.  Our  foreign 
policy  was  now  directed  by  Disraeli,  not  yet  Lord 
Beaconsfield  ;  he  met  the  proposal  of  Austria,  Prussia 
and  Russia  to  coerce  the  Turk,  with  the  remark  that 
the  Porte  had  not  had  time  to  execute  its  latest  reforms. 
True  to  the  Tory  traditions  of  Whitehall,  he  dis- 
couraged any  European  concert  likely  to  favour 
Muscovite  expansion  and  to  endanger  British  Im- 
perialism in  the  East.  Early  in  1876,  the  programme 
of  administrative  reforms  (the  Andrassy  Note)  was 
accepted  by  England  and  Turkey.  Before  that,  how- 
ever, in  the  November  of  1875,  the  status  of  England 
in  the  Near  East,  the  position  and  the  international 
relations  of  Egypt  had  been  dramatically  affected  by 
Disraeli's  diplomatic  coup  —  the  purchase  of  the 
Khedive's  shares  in  the  Suez  Canal.  The  time  at 
which  this  stroke  was  made,  as  well  as  its  diplomatic 
and  commercial  surroundings,  added  to  its  impressive- 
ness.  The  Foreign  Loans  Committee,  the  collapse  of 
South  American  securities,  the  dulness  of  trade,  the 
cheapness  of  silver,  the  dissolution  of  Turkish  credit, 
and  the  prevailing  gloom  of  the  commercial  atmosphere 
formed  the  sombre  background  against  which  the 
transaction  stood  out  in  brilliant  relief.  In  earlier 
years  Palmerston  was  only  one  of  several  British 
statesmen  who  had  opposed  the  Canal,  not  because 
it  was  a  Frenchman's  idea,  but  because  it  gave 
to  French  interest  overwhelming  preponderance  in 
Egypt.  Not  till  1869  or  1870  did  English  experts 
confirm  the  view  of  De  Lesseps  that  the  Canal  was 
not  only  a  success  but  a  power.  During  1875,  Mr 
Frederick  Greenwood,  then  editor  of  The  Pall  Mall 
Gazette,  learned  the  intention  of  France  to  dominate 

330 


Reaction  to  Intervention 

the  new  waterway.  To  Mr  Henry  Oppenheim  he 
suggested  the  purchase.  Disraeli,  struck  by  the  idea, 
approached  Baron  Lionel  Rothschild.  The  ,£4,500,000 
for  securing  the  shares  to  England  were  at  once  forth- 
coming;  the  Rothschilds  were  the  only  persons  who 
could  have  found  the  money  ;  their  profit  on  the  trans- 
action, at  two  and  a  half  per  cent,  was  ;£  100,000.* 
From  all  Europe,  except  France,  as  well  as  from 
De  Lesseps  himself,  congratulations  on  the  Suez 
purchase  poured  into  the  Foreign  Office. 

*  The  best  account  of  the  Suez  Canal  shares'  purchase  is  contained 
in  an  article  on  the  subject  in  The  Quarterly  Review,  vol.  142.  If,  as  is 
generally  understood,  the  writer  be  Sir  Henry  Drummond  Wolff,  G.C.B., 
its  knowledge  and  accuracy  require  no  other  guarantee  than  his  name. 
The  purchase  is  only  one  point  at  which  the  Rothschilds'  connection 
with  Egypt  has  been  fortunate,  not  only  for  that  country,  but  for  all 
politically  or  commercially  concerned  in  it.  In  1885,  the  Powers  were  at 
diplomatic  feud  with  each  other  about  the  land  of  the  Pharaohs.  Egypt's 
complete  bankruptcy  was  only  averted  by  monthly  advances  from  New 
Court,  on  no  other  security  than  a  private  note  from  the  Foreign 
Secretary  Lord  Granville.  The  ,£9,000,000  loan  of  1885  was  of  course  a 
great  success,  but  its  good  fortune  had  been  preceded  by  an  anxious 
season  of  prolonged  risk.  M.  Charles  Lesage,  French  Inspecteur  des 
Finances,  in  his  Achat  des  Actions  de  Suez,  from  the  financial  rather 
than  the  political  side  discusses  the  Suez  purchase  and  makes  some 
strong  and  even  fierce  remarks  on  the  Rothschilds'  arrangement  with 
the  Government  for  finding  the  money.  (L Achat  des  Actions  de  Suez, 
Paris,  Libraire  Plon,  1906). 


331 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE    PASSING    OF    PALMERSTON 

Cobden's  anti-Turkish  and  non-intervention  policy — Cobden,  Bright 
and  Louis  Mallet — Cobden's  Commercial  Treaties — Anglo- 
American  difficulties  in  Central  America — Russell's  skilful  inter- 
national diplomacy — The  Schleswig-Holstein  question — Popular 
feeling  in  favour  of  Denmark  and  armed  intervention — Palmer- 
ston's  rash  threats — Diplomacy  and  the  press — Awkwardness  of 
Russell's  position — French  proposal  of  a  congress  refused  by 
England — Diplomatic  disunion  between  Palmerston  and  Russell 
— Lord  Kimberley's  Copenhagen  mission — Napoleon  III.s  dip- 
lomatic intrigues — Palmerston's  refusal  to  be  drawn  into  inter- 
ference between  Russia  and  Poland — Lord  Dufferin's  mission  to 
Syria — British  diplomacy  in  the  American  Civil  War — The 
Trent  and  Alabama  affairs  —  The  Treaty  of  Washington 
and  the  Geneva  Congress — The  Franco-Prussian  War — Lord 
Granville's  protection  of  Belgium — Granville  and  Thiers. 

ONE  result  of  the  Crimean  period  and  of  the 
Palmerstonian  policy  was  to  emphasise  the 
contrast  between  two  schools  of  foreign  statesmanship. 
During  the  years  immediately  after  the  Crimean  War, 
one  general  election  was  decided  wholly  on  the  issue 
of  foreign  policy  ;  two  other  elections  were  largely 
influenced  by  it.  In  1857,  beaten  in  the  House  of 
Commons  by  the  Manchester  School  over  the  war 
with  China,  Palmerston  annihilated  his  opponents  on 
an  appeal  to  the  constituencies.  In  1858,  popular  feel- 
ing for  Italian  unity,  championed  by  France  in  the  war 
against  Austria,  helped  to  replace  the  Conservatives  by 
the  Liberals.  In  1859,  Palmerston's  alleged  servility  to 
Napoleon  III.,  as  attested  by  the  Conspiracy  to  Murder 

332 


The  Passing  of  Palmerston 

Bill,  brought  back  Derby  and  Disraeli.     Palmerston,  in 
fact,  was  condemned  for  not  being  sufficiently  Palmers- 
tonian,  and,  at  his  sacrifice,  Cobdenism  was  avenged  for 
its    defeat   of  a  twelvemonth  earlier.     Notwithstand- 
ing these  checks  to  non-intervention,  the  cause  with 
which  Cobden  and  his  friends  had  identified  themselves 
was  not  permanently  thrown  back.     The  succession  of 
events   were   merely  instances  of  the  ebb   and    flow, 
the  action  and  reaction  incidental  to  all  great  move- 
ments.    Palmerston  often  dwelt  on  the  progressively 
reforming   system    of    Turkey.       So   early   as    1836, 
Cobden,  in  his  pamphlet  on  Russia,  proved  the  non- 
existence  of  any  such  system.     For  years  Cobden,  as 
one  who  preferred  the  Russ  to  the  Mussulman,  heard 
himself  popularly  described   as   half  traitor   and  half 
lunatic.     Before  he  died  in   1865,  his  own  views  and 
those  of  John  Bright  were  spoken  of  as  the  common- 
sense  of  the  Eastern  question.     Had  he  lived  a  little 
longer,  he  would  have  heard  a  Conservative  Foreign 
Secretary,    Lord    Salisbury,    confess    that    when    we 
backed  the  Turk  in  the  Crimea  we  put  our  money  on 
the  wrong  horse.     The  Peelites  were  against  Palmers- 
ton's  intermeddlings  abroad.     But  non-intervention  was 
first  made  a  political  watchword,  as  has  been  seen,  by 
Palmerston's    departmental    successor.     The    Foreign 
Secretary  of  1851,  Lord  Granville,  Cobden's  intellectu- 
ally and  politically  convinced  disciple,  whether  in  or 
out  of  office,  applied  the  Cobdenite  doctrine  of  non- 
intervention to  our  external  relations,  with  an  energy 
and   definiteness   not   generally   shown,  as    Mr   John 
Morley   has   pointed   out,  by  the   titular  followers  of 
Peel.*     Lord  Granville,  too,  on  again  taking  over  the 

*  John  Morley's  Cobden,  vol.  ii.  p.  150. 
333 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

Foreign  Office,  in  1880,  confirmed  in  his  Egyptian 
appointment  the  Lord  Cromer.  This  is  the  expert  who 
has  recently  given  his  testimony  that  England,  in  ex- 
tending and  consolidating  her  world-wide  empire,  has 
uniformly  disarmed  jealousy  and  obstruction  by  the 
knowledge  that  her  flag,  wherever  it  flies,  secures  to  the 
foreign  trader  the  admission  of  untaxed  imports. 

Everywhere  in  the  propagation  of  his  views,  but 
especially  abroad,  Cobden  was  helped  only  less  by  their 
proved  soundness  than  by  the  calmness  of  temper,  tact  and 
knowledge  with  which  they  were  expounded  and  applied. 
The  extreme  unpopularity  with  all  classes  of  landowners 
of  his  anti-protectionist  teaching  undoubtedly,  at  first, 
added  strength  and  numbers  to  Palmerstonianism.     So 
far,  therefore,  Cobdenism,  for  a  time,  proved  not  only 
not  an  ally,  but  an  actual  enemy  to  the  non-intervention 
cause.     Cobden's  European  travels,    at  a  time  when 
Puck's  feat  of  putting  a  girdle  round  the  earth  had  yet  to 
become  a  commonplace,  gave  him  a  real  claim  to  the 
title  since  bestowed  on  him — "the  first  international 
man."    To  varied  and  accurate  cosmopolitan  experiences 
he  added,  upon  each  return  home,  the  tolerant  good- 
humour  and  the  wise  control  of  speech  that  won  recruits. 
All  the  authentic  palace  memoirs  since  Cobden's 
day,    from    Sir  Theodore    Martin's  Biography  of  the 
Prince  Consort  down  to  Lord  Esher  and  Mr  Benson's 
edition  of  Queen  Victorias  Letters,  show  not  only  that 
the  ascendancy  of  the  court  over  the  Foreign  Office  was 
even  greater  than  had  been  generally  supposed,  but  that 
we  had  come  within  a  measurable  distance  of  re-estab- 
lishing  in   our   external    statesmanship    the   personal 
authority  of  the  Crown  as  it  existed  under  George  III. 
Cobden,  through  his   socially  well-placed  informants, 

334 


The  Passing  of  Palmerston 

Charles  Villiers  and  Milner  Gibson,  knew  this  at  the 
time  as  well  as  did  any  of  the  professional  courtiers. 
To  have  given  the  rein  to  any  momentary  feeling  of 
resentment,  to  have  recognised  the  fact  by  a  single 
injudicious  expression,  would  have  raised  a  fresh, 
perhaps  a  fatal,  prejudice  against  the  anti-Palmerstonian 
movement. 

During  Lord  John  Russell's  second  term  at  the 
Foreign  Office,  in  the  Palmerston  ministry,  he  had  to  do 
with  a  descendant  of  the  Mallet  du  Pan  who,  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  had  been  employed  by  Pitt,  and  had 
helped  him  in  negotiating  with  France  the  commercial 
treaty  of  1786,*  thought  that  Free  Trade,  if  judiciously 
planted,  might  strike  its  roots  in  Continental  soil.  This 
was  the  future  Sir  Louis  Mallet,  afterwards  to  become 
permanent  Under- Secretary  of  State  for  India.  In 
his  words,  taken  down  by  me  in  his  room  at  the  India 
Office  in  1879,  I  give  the  following  account  of  the 
transaction: — In  1858,  Louis  Mallet,  though  his  disciple, 
had  no  personal  acquaintance  with  Cobden.  To  John 
Bright,  therefore,  and  not  directly  to  Cobden  himself, 
did  he  first  mention  the  project.  But,  to  quote  Mr 
B right's  own  words  to  me,  "  the  idea  was  Mallet's  and 
not  mine.  At  my  breakfast-table  he  first  came  to 
know  Cobden  ;  with  Cobden  he  went  to  Paris." 

During  a  morning's  conversation  at  the  Tuileries  the 
general  lines  as  well  as  the  most  important  details  of  the 
arrangement  were  discussed.  Cobden  himself  remained 
after  Mallet.  But  to  quote  Mr  Bright  verbatim — "  The 
diplomacy,  and  there  was  a  great  deal  of  it,  of  the 
treaty,  was  done  by  Mallet,  who  had  a  genius  for  that 

*  Generally  known  as  the  Bengal  Convention,  because  by  it  France 
gave  England  a  free  commercial  hand  in  that  part  of  India. 

335 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

sort  of  work."  The  same  period  and  the  same  absence 
from  England  produced  another  compact  with  a  second 
foreign  state.  After  travelling  up  and  down  the 
Danubian  peninsula,  Sir  Louis  Mallet  brought  home 
with  him  from  Vienna  an  Austro- English  treaty  of 
commerce  and  navigation.  Cobden,  indeed,  in  this 
period  had  an  important  political  ally  in  the  Cavour 
who,  on  the  foundation  of  the  Kingdom  of  Sardinia,  was 
to  raise  the  fabric  of  a  regenerated  and  united  Italy  ;  but 
English  policy,  which  in  this  sense  means  Cobdenism, 
it  was  that  took  the  initiative  in  inducing  Napoleon  III. 
to  relax  the  prohibitive  system  then  in  force  through- 
out his  realm.  Later  triumphs  of  the  Cobden  states- 
manship abroad  were  the  reduction  in  1865,  by  the 
German  Zollverein,  of  duties  on  imported  articles 
and  manufactured  goods.  Of  that  movement  the 
commercial  treaties  and  tariff  changes  of  1 868  and  1 869 
were  the  continuation.* 

*  This  seems  a  fitting  place  at  which  to  explain  exactly  a  diplomatic 
term  so  familiar  as  to  have  passed  into  a  popular  figure  of  speech.  "  The 
most  favoured  nation  "  clause,  when  it  occurs,  is  inserted  in  commercial 
treaties  as  a  means  of  preventing  the  goods  of  each  of  the  contracting 
parties  being  treated  in  the  territory  of  the  other  more  unfavourably  than 
the  similar  goods  produced  by  some  other  country.  For  instance,  let  it 
be  supposed  that  a  treaty  of  commerce  between  Great  Britain  and 
France  contains  a  most  favoured  nation  clause,  that  under  the  British 
Customs'  tariff  French  wines  pay  an  import  tax  of  ten  per  cent.  Let  it 
be  further  assumed  that  diplomatic  negotiations  result  in  the  British 
admission  of  Spanish  wines  of  the  same  quality  as  the  French  wines  at  a 
tax  of  five  per  cent.  Then  under  the  most  favoured  nation  clause, 
French  wines  would  automatically  benefit  by  the  reduction  granted  to 
Spanish  wines  at  five  per  cent.  also.  In  such  a  case  as  the  foregoing  the 
most  favoured  nation  clause  is  quite  unconditional.  The  clause,  however, 
may  be  so  worded  as  to  be  conditional ;  it  depends  on  the  kind  of  treaty 
negotiated  by  the  contracting  parties.  The  United  States,  and  possibly 
some  others,  have  always  denied  that  the  favours  granted  by  reciprocity 
treaties  are  acquired  under  ordinary  "  most  favoured  "  articles,  unless  the 
same  concessions  are  made  in  return.  Thus,  by  a  treaty  between  France 

336 


The   Passing  of  Palmerston 

During  these  achievements  of  the  new  machinery 
that  had  supplemented  our  diplomatic  system  our 
Foreign  Office  under  Lord  John  Russell  was  engaged 
with  two  or  three  international  incidents  which  had 
begun  to  make  their  pressure  felt  so  far  back  as  the 
period  of  the  Paris  Congress.  In  1856,  by  foiling,  as 
had  been  already  explained,  the  Russian  attempt  to 
occupy  the  Isle  of  Serpents,  Palmerston  had  prevented 
the  Russian  diplomatists  from  so  arranging  the  Bessara- 
bian  frontier  as  to  reach  the  southward  point  on  which 
their  eyes  were  fixed.  The  Anglo-French  entente, 
which  by  his  independent  recognition  of  the  Second  Em- 
pire had  cost  Palmerston  his  place  in  1851,  was  severely 
strained  by  the  Crimean  War.  It  practically  gave 
way  during  the  period  of  the  subsequent  peace  negotia- 
tions. Palmerston,  however,  as  Prime  Minister,  with 
Clarendon  at  the  Foreign  Office,  succeeded  in  confin- 
ing Russia  within  the  frontiers  that  had  been  fixed  at 
Paris.  The  Orders  in  Council  and  the  British  right  of 
search  brought  the  United  States  and  England  to  blows 
after  the  Napoleonic  wars.  The  Foreign  Enlistment 
Act,  of  December  1854,  empowering  England  to  in- 
crease her  soldiers  in  the  Crimea  by  perfectly  useless 
foreign  legions,  embroiled  the  London  and  Wash- 
ington Foreign  Offices  before  the  complete  execution 
of  the  settlement  of  1856.  The  controversy  was 
complicated  by  alleged  English  infraction  of  the 
Clay  ton- Bulwer  Treaty  (1850) ;  this  had  prohibited 

and  America  French  silk  goods  might  be  admitted  at  a  reduced  rate. 
The  Washington  diplomatists  would  not  allow  the  inference  that  any 
most  favoured  nation  clause  with  England  confers  on  British  silks  the 
same  privileges  as  have  been  given  to  French.  "  If,"  says  the  United 
States  Government,  u  Great  Britain  desires  participation  in  the  privileges 
of  France,  let  her  make  some  special  concession  to  the  United  States  as 
an  equivalent." 

Y  337 


The  Story  of  British   Diplomacy 

both  the  United  States  and  England  from  any  enter- 
prise to  their  own  profit  on  the  littoral  of  the  contem- 
plated waterway  through  Central  America.  The 
constructive  breach  of  the  Clay  ton- Bui  wer  Treaty 
alleged  against  England  arose  from  her  connection  with 
the  Mosquito  Islands  in  the  Bay  of  Honduras,  over 
which  she  claimed  a  protectorate.  The  difference 
remained  open  for  three  years  ;  it  was  settled  in  1859  by 
the  American  purchase  of  the  islands  on  a  guarantee 
of  security  to  all  local  interests  of  Great  Britain.  But 
for  some  time  public  feeling  on  both  sides  of  the 
Atlantic  ran  not  less  dangerously  high  than  it  was  to 
do  over  the  affair  of  the  Trent,  in  1861.  In  that  year 
the  interception  by  a  federal  vessel  of  the  British  ship 
carrying  the  confederate  envoys  supplied  the  Prince 
Consort  with  the  last  occasion  of  an  actively  bene- 
ficent intervention  in  our  foreign  policy  at  an  anxious 
crisis. 

The  Prince's  life  coincided  with  a  noticeable 
change  in  England's  diplomatic  objects  and  methods. 
In  his  younger  days,  those  of  the  Holy  Alliance  epoch, 
diplomacy  was  regarded  as  an  agency  for  executing  or 
baffling  the  territorial  or  dynastic  ambitions  and  in- 
trigues of  sovereigns.  The  anti-national  and  auto- 
cratic lengths  to  which  European  statesmanship  had 
gone  at  Vienna  in  1815,  prepared  the  way  for  a 
reaction  towards  the  recognition  of  racial  rights  and 
political  self-government.  Diplomacy  during  the 
latter  part  of  Russell's  and  Clarendon's  course  tended 
to  become  an  instrument  for  securing  the  great  national 
forces  of  democracy  and  liberty.  Between  1859  and 
1865  Russell  watched  from  Whitehall  and  saw  that  his 
department  was  perfectly  supplied  with  the  latest  news 

338 


The  Passing  of  Palmerston 

concerning  the  settlement  of  the  Balkan  peninsula  by 
Prince  Couza's  election  (1859)  as  Hospodar  of  Moldavia 
and  Wallachia.  So  too  with  each  stage  in  the  later 
developments  of  the  Italian  policy  adopted  by  Eng- 
land not  less  than  France  from  the  day  on  which 
Charles  Albert,  King  of  Sardinia,  became  an  ally 
in  the  war  against  Russia.  Palmerston  had  de- 
fined his  attitude  to  foreign  states,  in  whose  quarrels 
he  did  not  intervene,  as  that  of  a  judicious  bottle- 
holder.  No  English  Foreign  Minister  ever  laboured 
with  such  secrecy,  astuteness,  and  success  to  regulate 
international  relations,  in  the  interests  of  Italian 
unity  then  so  dear  to  his  country,  as  did  Russell. 
Though  unrecorded  in  any  histories,  perhaps,  even  in 
memoirs  of  the  period,  his  were  the  skilful  offices 
which  encouraged  the  good  understanding  between 
Cavour  and  Napoleon  III.,  and  which  prevented  its 
being  impaired  by  the  outburst  of  English  indignation 
when  France,  as  the  price  of  a  liberated  Venice,  took 
Savoy  and  Nice.*  Thus  the  Zurich  treaties,  ending, 
in  the  November  of  1859,  the  Franco- Italian  War, 
really  bore  the  impress  of  Russell's  mind. 

This  was  the  period  during  which  the  English  public 
made  a  remarkable  advance  in  its  knowledge  of  foreign 
politics.  Palmerston,  indeed,  had  prepared  the  way 
for  this  progress  by  generally  treading  in  Canning's 
footprints.  Canning  had  been  the  first  Secretary  of 
State  to  make  the  Foreign  Office  the  most  important 
department  of  the  day,  and  to  invest  external  politics 
with  a  popular  interest  transcending  that  of  domestic 
affairs.  Exactly  the  same  thing  in  his  turn  was  done 

*  As  a  fact  no  explosion  of  English  or  any  other  feeling  for  a  moment 
could  have  endangered  co-operation  between  Cavour  and  Napoleon,  who 
understood  each  other  perfectly  throughout. 

339 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

by  Palmerston.  Between  1850  and  1860  the  foreign 
policy  debates  of  the  popular  Chamber  were  as  good 
as  those  of  the  Peers.  The  Savoy  and  Nice  discus- 
sion produced  a  survey  of  our  international  relations 
and  the  principles  on  which  they  rested  from  the  third 
Sir  Robert  Peel  as  wise,  as  clear  as,  and  richer  in 
information  than,  any  utterance  on  the  same  subject 
from  his  famous  father.  Here  I  may  correct  a  mistake 
on  this  subject  widely  current  at  the  time  and  since 
then  almost  stereotyped.  The  story  is  that  A.  W. 
Kinglake,  whose  exceedingly  low  voice  often  made 
him  inaudible,  delivered  a  masterly  dissertation  on  the 
Savoy  and  Nice  question,  that  no  one  heard  it  except 
Peel  who  was  sitting  next  him,  and  who  made  the 
oratorical  hit  of  the  next  evening  by  literally  repro- 
ducing Kinglake's  unheard,  and  so  unreported,  words. 
The  facts,  as  given  me  by  both  men,  are  these. 
Kinglake  did  indeed  compose  an  oration  on  the  sub- 
ject. Prevented  from  going  to  the  House,  he  did  not 
deliver  it.  Happening  to  see  his  friend  Peel,  whom  he 
knew  intended  to  speak,  he  meekly  asked  that  fine 
orator,  for  such  Peel  was,  whether  he  would  care  to 
see  some  notes  he  had  put  together  on  the  matter. 

There  were,  Palmerston  used  to  say,  only  three 
persons  who  ever  understood  the  Schleswig-Holstein 
question  :  the  first  was  Prince  Albert,  and  he  was  dead  ; 
the  second  was  a  German  statesman,  and  he  had  gone 
mad  ;  the  third  was  Palmerston  himself,  and  he  had  for- 
gotten it.  The  chief  points  in  connection  with  this  sub- 
ject necessary  to  bear  in  mind  are  the  very  intimate 
connection  established  by  ancient  law  between  the  two 
duchies  of  Holstein  and  Schleswig,  the  facts  that  the 
King  of  Denmark  was  only  Duke  of  Schleswig- 

340 


The  Passing  of  Palmerston 

Holstein,  that  the  Holstein  duchy  was  inhabited  by 
Germans  and  formed  part  of  the  Germanic  confedera- 
tion. There  were  in  Denmark  certain  enthusiasts  for 
nationality,  who,  while  leaving  Holstein  alone,  were 
bent  on  eliminating  any  German  element  from 
Schleswig  and  making  it  in  every  way  a  Danish 
province.  As  an  early  result  of  this  policy  the 
German  Lutherans  in  Schleswig  were  deprived  of 
public  worship  in  their  own  tongue  and  of  German 
teachers  in  their  schools.  In  November  1863  the 
Danish  Assembly,  the  Rigsraad  at  Copenhagen, 
passed  an  act  incorporating  Schleswig  in  the  Danish 
monarchy.  This  act,  ratified  by  the  king  then  reign- 
ing, and  by  his  successor,  Christian  IX.,  violated  a 
convention  on  which  English  diplomacy  had  taken 
great  pains,  the  Treaty  of  London  (1852).  The 
breach  of  international  obligation  fully  justified  Bis- 
marck's appeal  to  the  Powers  that  had  signed  the 
broken  compact ;  Lord  John  Russell  put  all  the 
machinery  of  our  Foreign  Office  in  motion  to  co- 
operate with  France  in  adjusting  the  difficulty.  Out- 
side the  Foreign  Office  popular  feeling  in  England 
clamoured  for  armed  intervention  on  behalf  of  Den- 
mark. The  Prime  Minister,  and  ex- Foreign  Secretary, 
Palmerston  himself,  in  July  1863,  declared  that  those 
rho  attempted  to  overthrow  the  rights  or  interfere 
ith  the  independence  of  Denmark  would  find  that 
they  had  to  contend  with  other  Powers  than  Denmark 
alone.  By  not  resigning  his  Cabinet  office  after  find- 
ing himself  committed  by  these  words  to  resist  Prussia, 
Russell  made  himself  responsible  for  them  ;  he  did  not 
even,  as  he  had  opportunities  for  doing,  undeceive 
Denmark  by  explaining  away  the  utterance  of  his  chief. 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

An  English  rival  to  English  diplomacy  asserted 
itself.  Sometime  before  this,  on  several  different  occa- 
sions, Palmerston  thought  he  had  reason  to  complain  of 
The  Times  for  forcing  his  hand  or  increasing  the  diffi- 
culty of  his  negotiation  at  critical  points.  Here  he  had 
found  the  court  in  entire  agreement  with  himself ;  the 
Prince  Consort,  in  fact,  knowing  his  private  acquaint- 
anceship with  Delane,  had  even  asked  him  to  expostu- 
late with  the  famous  editor  on  the  inconveniences  to  the 
public  service  caused  by  Printinghouse  Square.  Now 
Lord  John  Russell,  by  no  means  a  victim  of  the 
traditional  Whig  prejudice  against  the  press,  complained 
of  being  hampered  by  newspaper  editors  and  factious 
busybodies  in  all  his  efforts  at  arrangement.  Some 
of  these  spoke  with  authority,  and  for  the  first  time 
used  the  cant  expression  of  supplying  the  Danes  with 
a  moral  assistance.  Such  idle  talk  contributed  to 
England's  unpopularity  abroad  ;  it  also  discredited  the 
responsible  directors  of  her  policy.  In  this  way 
Lord  John  Russell  found  himself  prejudiced  with  both 
the  disputants  when  he  proposed  an  eminently  sensible 
compromise ;  this  was  the  partition  of  Schleswig 
between  Denmark  and  Germany  by  the  dividing  line 
of  the  languages  spoken  in  the  two  sections.  Un- 
happily the  head  of  the  English  Foreign  Office  did 
not  show  an  equal  wisdom  in  regard  to  other  matters  ; 
he  fell  into  the  same  mistake  himself  of  which  he  had 
accused  others  ;  he  now  established  the  closest  rela- 
tions with  The  Times.  The  newspaper  in  fact  began 
to  reflect  his  views  ;  it  even  used  the  exact  language 
inspired  by  him.  In  September  1863  The  Times,  quot- 
ing and  amplifying  words  which  Russell  himself  may 

342 


The  Passing  of  Palmerston 

not  have  uttered,  but  for  which,  as  Cabinet  minister, 
he  was  responsible,  declared  that  the  meditated  dis- 
memberment of  Denmark  would  raise  up  champions 
for  her  in  every  quarter.  Such  opinions  on  the  part 
of  the  Foreign  Secretary  conflicted  as  directly  with  the 
undoubted  views  of  the  sovereign  as  anything  done 
or  said  by  Palmerston  in  his  most  undisciplined  mood. 

On  the  9th  of  November  1863,  the  Queen  received 
Napoleon  III.'s  invitation  to  a  congress  for  discussing 
the  Danish,  and  it  might  be  also  the  Polish,  question. 
The  last  of  these  subjects  brought  our  Foreign  Office 
at  this  period  more  than  one  snub  from  Gortschakoff, 
who,  asked  by  Downing  Street  to  treat  Poland  accord- 
ing to  English  rather  than  Russian  ideas,  replied  that 
if  England  wished  to  play  the  champion  of  oppressed 
nationalities,  she  might  as  well  begin  with  Ireland. 

Our  diplomacy,  by  rejecting  this  offer,  renounced 
the  one  condition,  that  of  French  co-operation,  on 
which  England  could  have  helped  Denmark.  As  it 
was,  the  Russell- Palmerston  policy  not  only  sacrificed 
Denmark,  it  left  an  abiding  bitterness  between 
France  and  England ;  it  also  inspired  Prussia  with 
a  feeling  that  Great  Britain,  had  she  felt  herself 
free,  would  have  drawn  the  sword  for  Danish  inde- 
pendence, and  that  the  British  branch  of  the  Teutonic 
family,  so  far  from  wishing  Prussia  well  in  her  national 
mission,  at  heart  resented  the  Prince  Consort's  past 
attempts  to  cement  the  friendship  between  his  native 
and  his  adopted  country.  All  this  legacy  of  inter- 
national mischief  and  animosity  arose  from  the  fact 
that  the  Prime  Minister  and  the  Foreign  Minister  were 
straining  the  strings  of  diplomacy  in  two  different 
directions.  Russell,  with  official  responsibility,  urged 

343 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

timely  concessions  to  Denmark ;  Palmerston,  playing 
to  the  gallery,  was  assuring  the  Danes  that  if  they 
stood  out,  they  would  not  find  themselves  alone. 
Instead,  therefore,  of  a  congress,  which  would  at  any 
rate  have  pleased  the  one  Power,  France,  whose 
interests  crossed  the  pathway  of  England  in  every  part 
of  the  world,  and  whose  good-will  at  any  cost  we  should 
have  secured,  our  Foreign  Office  sent  the  then  Lord 
Wodehouse,  afterwards  Lord  Kimberley,  on  a  special 
mission  to  Copenhagen. 

No  documents  officially  relating  to  this  errand  have 
been  published.  Lord  Kimberley,  however,  as  I  have 
heard  from  his  own  lips,  returned  to  London  with  two 
chief  impressions  stamped  on  his  clear  and  dispassion- 
ate mind.  The  first  was  that  Napoleon  III.  had  been 
from  the  first  the  exciting  spirit  of  the  whole  storm. 
During  the  fifties  Napoleon  III.  was  secretly  schem- 
ing for  a  Franco- Prussian  alliance.  To  promote  this, 
he  and  no  other  first  suggested  at  Berlin  the  seizure 
of  the  duchies.  "  Of  this  fact,"  were  Lord  Kimberley's 
own  words,  "  I  brought  back  conclusive  evidence  from 
Copenhagen  in  1863."  Before  the  Danish  trouble, 
Napoleon  III.  had  noted  the  universal  indignation 
of  Englishmen,  indifferently  of  class  or  party,  against 
Russia  for  her  absorption  of  the  poor  remnant  of 
Poland  and  her  barbarities  practised  on  the  Polish 
patriots  who  stood  out  for  independence.  Of  this 
feeling  Louis  Napoleon  took  advantage  by  proposing 
to  the  English  Government  co-operation  for  the  Polish 
cause  against  Russia,  possibly  against  Austria  and 
Prussia  too,  the  two  latter  Powers  being  then  the 
objects  of  an  English  detestation  only,  if  at  all,  less  than 
that  excited  by  Russia.  Not  that  Louis  Napoleon 

344 


The  Passing  of  Palmerston 

really  cared  more  for  the  Poles  whom  the  Czar  was 
doing  slowly  to  death  than  he  did  for  the  crowds 
with  whose  blood  he  had  dyed  Paris  in  1851.  All 
this  time,  indeed,  he  was  secretly  instigating  the 
monarchies  of  Eastern  Europe  to  deeds  of  violence 
against  their  disaffected  subjects  at  home.  Thus  he 
counted  on  the  popular  liberal  opinion  of  England  to 
forbid  any  union  between  Great  Britain  and  the  courts 
of  Eastern  Europe.  Palmerston  may  have  been  de- 
ceived by  the  Turk  ;  he  thoroughly  saw  through  the 
French  emperor.  It  was  the  astute  determination 
not  to  be  his  cat's-paw  or  dupe  that  hardened  Palmer- 
ston against  all  overtures  from  the  Tuileries  and,  so 
far  as  appearances  went,  made  him  a  devout  convert 
to  the  Manchester  evangel  of  non-intervention.  In  the 
case  of  Poland,  Palmerston  had  to  resist  real  society 
pressure ;  for  the  Pole  was  then  a  drawing-room 
favourite.  The  French  ambassador  in  London,  to 
whom  Palmerston  had  approved  the  coup  dttat  of 
1851,  Count  Walewski,  was  himself  of  Polish  extraction, 
had  been  very  popular  in  Belgravia  and  Mayfair  since 
he  was  first  known  there,  a  handsome  young  man,  the 
natural  son  and  a  pleasing  likeness  of  the  great 
Napoleon.  Introduced  by  his  first  wife,  a  daughter  of 
Lord  Sandwich,  into  the  English  peerage,  he  found  a 
second  wife  in  a  Florentine  of  great  beauty  and  social 
tact,  who  made  the  French  Embassy  in  London  the 
most  charming  resort  of  the  diplomatic  body.  As 
has  been  shown  above,  Palmerston's  acquiescence  in 
Napoleon's  project  of  a  congress  might  have 
strengthened  his  hands  in  Denmark  and  need  not 
have  weakened  them  elsewhere.  The  general  French 
plea  for  philanthropic  interference  in  Poland's  relations 

345 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

with  the  Powers,  had  for  its  real  motive  the  sowing 
of  mischief  between   England  and  her  Allies.     The 
French  suggestion  of  a  congress  was  in  form  plausible 
and   diplomatically    "correct."     The   troubles   caused 
by  an  earlier  congress  might  be   healed  by   a   later. 
The  Prusso- Danish  complications  arising   out  of  the 
duchies  were  really  rooted  in  the  Vienna  settlements 
in  1815.     The  disturbance  of  these  had  begun  when 
the   principle   of  nationality   was   recognised   by   the 
separation  of  Belgium  from  Holland  in  1830.     Surely, 
therefore,  it  would  be  only  reasonable  now  for  Europe, 
in  the  collective  capacity  as  Louis  Napoleon  proposed, 
to   revise  the   Vienna   arrangements  by  the   light   of 
what  had  happened  since,  and  in  accordance  with  the 
new  ideas  of  nationality.     With  that  latter  considera- 
tion   Palmerston   had    no   more   sympathy   than    had 
Metternich  himself.     "When,"  said  to  me  some  years 
ago  the  late   Lord  Kimberley,  apropos  of  his  Copen- 
hagen mission  in   1863,  "  I  was  set  to  work,  our  own 
Foreign  Office,  like  others,  underrated  the  political  force 
of  that  national  sentiment  which  inspired  the  claim  of 
Prussia  to  the  duchies,  and  which,  it  was  already  becom- 
ing plain,  would  increase  in  momentum  till  Berlin  be- 
came the  capital  of  a  united  Germany."     The  collision 
between   Danish  and  Prussian  interest  in  the  duchies 
had  been  going  on  since  1845.     In  its  earlier  stages,  the 
Prince  Consort's  preference  for  Prussian  over  the  Danish 
claims  had  caused  more  than  one  sharp  difference  be- 
tween himself  and  Palmerston  ;  these  differences  had 
also  elicited  from  the  queen  a  reprimand  which  preceded 
by  a  year  Palmerston's  dismissal  of  1851.     The  vehe- 
mence of  Palmerston's  language  afterwards,  suggests  that 
the  memories  of  the  dispute  were  still  dangerously  fresh. 

346 


The  Passing  of  Palmerston 

Lord  John  had  become  Earl  Russell  before  the 
Schleswig-Holstein  episode  had  entered  upon  its 
acutest  phase.  Something  may  be  said  about  the 
other  movements  of  our  diplomacy  during  his  second 
term  at  the  Foreign  Office.  Four  years  after  the 
re-settlement  of  the  Near  East  by  the  Treaty  of 
Paris,  the  fitness  of  Turkey  for  imperial  independence 
was  seen  in  the  Syrian  outbreak  originating  in  the 
quarrels  between  the  Maronites  and  the  Druses,  rival 
sects  of  degenerate  Christians  and  degenerate  Moham- 
medans.* In  the  retrospect  of  to-day  this  incident 
derives  its  chief  interest  and  importance  from  its 
having  afforded  the  earliest  great  opportunity  for  the 
display  of  his  rare  gifts  as  diplomatist  and  adminis- 
trator to  one  of  the  brightest,  most  impressive  and 
interesting  figures  in  the  diplomatic  story  of  the 
Victorian  age.  The  disturbance  raised  by  the  hill 
tribes  of  rural  Syria  spread  to  the  towns.  Moslem 
fanaticism  wrecked  European  consulates,  the  Porte 
must  be  shown  what  to  do,  a  convention  of  the  Powers 
entrusted  to  France  and  England  the  restoration  of 
order,  on  the  basis  of  a  protocol  that  no  state  sought 
territorial  advantage  or  exclusive  influence  for  itself. 
The  British  commissioner,  Lord  Dufferin,  whose 
debut  in  diplomacy  had  been  made  when  he  accom- 
panied Russell  to  the  Vienna  Conference,  in  1855,  heard 
from  Lord  Palmerston  at  his  farewell  interview  the 
private  opinion  that  the  entire  disturbance  had  been 
got  up  by  the  Emperor  of  the  French  in  revenge  for 

*  The  religious  faiths  held  by  the  insurrectionaries  are  obscure  and 
debatable,  what  is  alone  certain  about  the  Druses,  according  to  one 
expert,  being  that  they  were  not  Mussulmans.  It  seems  equally  certain 
that  the  Maronites  were  highly  heterodox  Christians. 

347 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

Palmerston's  extinction  of  Mehemet  Ali,  and  of  the 
French  designs  upon  Syria  m  1840.  "It  is  also/'  said 
Palmerston,  "  meant  as  a  kind  of  retrospective  justifi- 
cation of  the  congress  of  the  other  day  with  which  I 
would  have  nothing  to  do/'  Lord  Dufferin  accom- 
plished his  task  with  admirable  spirit,  judgment  and 
success.  The  fact  and  the  circumstances  of  his  despatch 
constituted  an  admission  that  the  nominal  independence 
of  the  Porte,  as  secured  by  the  treaty  of  1856,  had  ceased 
to  exist.  The  Sultan  had  indeed  consented  to  this  act 
of  intervention  ;  when,  however,  asked  for  his  acqui- 
escence, he  had  been  told  that  whether  he  said  yes  or 
no,  the  Powers  meant  to  manage  it  in  their  own  way. 

The  most  serious  events  of  Lord  Russell's  second 
Secretaryship  happened  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Atlantic.  The  damages  to  Federal  property  done  by 
Confederate  privateers  built,  like  the  Alabama,  in 
England,  gave  rise  to  the  prolonged  and  threatening 
controversy  between  Washington  and  Whitehall  which 
was  only  settled  by  the  Geneva  arbitration  of  1870. 
Of  the  war  itself  there  need  be  recalled  here  only  so 
much  as  will  make  its  politics  intelligible.  The  seces- 
sion of  the  Southern  States  from  the  Union  began  with 
South  Carolina,  whose  efforts  resulted,  on  4th  February 
1 86 1,  in  a  meeting  of  Southern  delegates  at  Mont- 
gomery in  Alabama  for  the  purpose  of  forming,  under 
the  presidency  of  Jefferson  Davis,  a  constitution  of 
their  own.  At  its  commencement  the  consideration  of 
slavery  did  not  enter  into  the  quarrel ;  the  Federal 
president,  Abraham  Lincoln,  emphasised  this  fact ;  nor 
did  he,  as  has  been  supposed,  introduce  the  word  into 
the  negotiations  for  a  friendly  dissolution  of  partner- 
ship by  which  it  was  attempted  to  avert  actual 

348 


The  Passing  of  Palmerston 

hostilities.  Lincoln's  call,  on  i6th  April,  for  armed 
volunteers  to  re-establish  the  Federal  authority  over 
the  rebel  states,  drew  from  the  rival  president  Davis  a 
declaration  that  he  would  issue  letters  of  marque. 
President  Lincoln  then  declared  the  Southern  ports 
under  blockade.  On  8th  May  1861,  Lord  John 
Russell  told  the  House  of  Commons  that,  as  advised 
by  the  law  officers  of  the  Crown,  the  Government 
would  recognise  the  Confederates  for  belligerents. 
Five  days  later  appeared  the  neutrality  proclamation, 
warning  English  subjects  against,  by  their  persons, 
their  property  or  their  arms,  assisting  either  of 
the  parties  to  the  conflict.  Here  began  the  first 
offence  taken  against  England  by  the  North.  There 
was  at  this  time  on  his  way  to  London  a  fresh  repre- 
sentative of  the  United  States,  Adams  ;  before  treating 
the  rebel  states  on  an  equality  with  their  opponents,  it 
would,  said  the  Washington  diplomatists,  have  been 
only  courteous  and  just  to  hear  what  the  new  envoy 
had  to  say,  after  he  had  presented  his  credentials. 
This  complaint  was  unreasonable,  because  the  Northern 
proclamation  of  a  blockade,  a  traditional  mode  of 
international  war,  implied  that  the  proclaimer  was 
trying  conclusions  with  one  who  was  as  much  an 
enemy  as  if  he  were  a  foreigner.  The  British  Govern- 
ment withstood  the  most  pressing  suggestions  from  the 
Vatican,  as  from  the  Tuileries,  of  foreign  help  in  an 
organised  effort  by  breaking  the  blockade  to  assist  the 
South.  The  most  authoritative  and  philosophic  diplo- 
matist of  the  day,  De  Tocqueville,  who  knew  America 
as  well  as  he  did  France,  regarded  a  Confederate 
triumph  as  a  foregone  conclusion.  In  London,  society, 
The  Times,  and  most  of  the  press,  except  The  Spectator 

349 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

were  dead  against  the  Union.  For  years  past  the  pre- 
ponderating influence  in  the  United  States  Government 
had  been  that  of  the  now  rebellious  Southerners.  Shortly 
before  the  war  broke  out  there  had  been  an  Anglo- 
American  difficulty  concerning  a  runaway  United  States 
slave,  Anderson,  who  had  taken  refuge  in  Canada. 

For  the  purpose  of  these  pages  nothing  more  is 
wanted  than  the  shortest  summary  of  the  circumstances 
which  accompanied  the  opening  between  the  Wash- 
ington Foreign  Office  under  Seward,  and  the  London 
Foreign  Office  under  Russell,  of  the  epistolary  wrangle 
which  in  some  of  its  many  weary  stages  continued 
during  the  greater  part  of  ten  years.  Had  not,  the 
Confederate  managers  asked  themselves,  the  heir  to  a 
Whig  dukedom,*  himself  one  of  the  pillars  of  his  party 
in  the  Lower  House,  during  a  pleasure  trip  in  the 
great  republic  of  the  West,  symbolised  his  sympathy 
with  the  South  by  transferring  to  his  own  coat-lapel 
the  Confederate  colours  worn  by  his  partner  in  an 
American  ballroom  ?  Even  though  informally,  it 
must  be  high  time  for  Jefferson  Davis  to  be  repre- 
sented both  in  London  and  in  Paris.  The  first  step 
was  to  despatch  across  the  Atlantic  the  most  plausible 
and  fervent  advocate  of  the  Southern  political  claim, 
W.  L.  Yancey.  The  British  and  the  French  capitals 
as  well  as  other  points  of  international  interest  and 
importance  were  to  be  included  in  his  European 
tour.  This  diplomatic  reconnaissance  was  promising 
enough  to  encourage  the  further  despatch  of  regularly 
accredited  Southern  representatives  to  London  and 
Paris ;  for  the  British  capital  was  destined  James 
Murray  Mason ;  for  the  French  a  southern  lawyer 

*  The  eighth  Duke  of  Devonshire,  then  Marquis  of  Hartington. 

350 


The  Passing  of  Palmerston 

and  politician,  Slidell.  Late  in  the  October  or  early 
in  the  November  of  1861,  these  two  envoys  embarked 
at  Havana  on  the  British  mail  steamer  Trent.  During 
their  passage  they  were  violently  intercepted  by  the 
American  man-of-war,  San  Jacinto,  commanded  by 
Captain  Wilkes  ;  they  were  then  seized  and  shut  up  in 
one  of  the  forts  of  Boston  harbour.  On  27th  November 
the  Trent  reached  Southampton.  Lord  John  Russell 
lost  not  a  moment  in  demanding  from  the  American 
Government  full  reparation  for  a  gross  breach  of  inter- 
national law  and  wanton  affront  to  the  British  flag. 

Napoleon  III.,  it  has  been  seen,  had  already  vainly 
appealed  to  England  to  make  common  cause  with  him 
against  the  North.  All  the  European  Powers  now  sup- 
ported Great  Britain  in  demanding  the  liberation  of  the 
envoys,  and  full  apology  for  the  outrage.  There  now 
came  from  the  Washington  Foreign  Office  an  assur- 
ance that  the  commander  of  the  San  Jacintos  action 
was  unauthorised,  and  that  the  whole  matter  had  the 
President's  grave  consideration.  This  was  the  last 
occasion  on  which  Queen  Victoria's  husband  took  an 
active  concern  in  English  diplomacy.  The  public 
heard  almost  simultaneously  of  the  Prince's  death  and 
the  arrangement  of  the  dispute.  The  next  inter- 
national charge  brought  against  England  by  the  North 
was  that  British  shipping-yards  were  being  made  the 
naval  base  of  the  Confederacy.  The  navy  which  Mr 
Gladstone  complimented  Jefferson  Davis  on  making, 
was  built  by  British  constructors.  The  most  famous 
of  several  privateers,  the  Alabama,  was  practically  an 
English  vessel,  the  handiwork  of  the  Lairds  of  Birken- 
head,  paid  for  with  money  borrowed  from  English 
lenders ;  under  the  British  flag  it  lured  Federal  crafts 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

to  their  destruction  ;  its  guns  had  formerly  belonged 
to  the  English  navy.  Before  it  issued  from  the  river 
Mersey,  the  American  Foreign  Secretary  Adams 
demanded  its  detention  by  the  British  Government  ; 
so  sound  an  English  lawyer  as  Sir  Robert  Collier 
supported  the  demand.  John  Bright  raised  the  ques- 
tion in  the  House  of  Commons.  Palmerston,  who  in 
1858  had  brought  in  the  Conspiracy  to  Murder  Bill  to 
propitiate  Napoleon,  and  had  been  turned  out  upon 
it,  now  haughtily  said  it  was  not  the  English  habit 
to  alter  laws  to  please  a  foreigner.  Meanwhile,  the 
British  equipment  of  Confederate  warships  and  rams 
went  on  so  briskly,  and  for  the  Northern  cause  so 
disastrously,  that  in  one  of  his  many  protests  to  Russell, 
Adams  remarked,  "  it  would  be  superfluous  to  point 
out  that  this  is  war."  The  request  of  the  Washington 
Foreign  Office  was,  however,  not  for  an  embargo  on 
all  the  Confederate  vessels  now  being  prepared  in  the 
Liverpool  dockyards,  but  for  their  detention  till  the 
law  of  neutrality  professed  by  England  could  be 
exactly  defined.  During  the  years  through  which 
this  diplomatic  discussion  continued,  there  were  intro- 
duced into  it  other  subjects,  such  as  Confederate  raids 
from  Canada  into  the  States,  and  Fenian  raids  from 
the  States  into  Canada.  In  the  course  of  1862, 
Russell  declared  the  correspondence  at  an  end ;  he 
also  point-blank  refused  any  responsibility  for  whatever 
destruction  Confederate  cruisers,  wherever  built,  had 
wrought  on  Federal  shipping.  In  1866,  the  Foreign 
Office  passed  to  Lord  Stanley.  He  proposed  to  the 
Washington  diplomatists  a  general  arbitration  treaty 
on  the  whole  subject.  Such  a  convention  was  actually 
signed  by  Stanley's  successor,  Clarendon,  and  Reverdy 

352 


The  Passing  of  Palmerston 

Johnson ;  it  was,  however,  rejected  by  the  American 
senate  on  the  ground  that  it  did  not  clearly  enough 
provide  for  claims  on  account  of  indirect  as  well  as 
direct  injury  done  by  vessels  like  the  Alabama* 

By  the  time  that  Lord  Granville  began  his  second 
term  at  the  Foreign  Office  in  1870,  other  matters 
were  in  dispute  between  Whitehall  and  Washington. 
Granville's  suggestion  to  Gladstone  was  in  a  single 
international  act  to  comprehend  the  settlement  of  all 
controversial  points.  Eventually  this  plan  fell  through  ; 
the  idea  of  arbitration  was  revived  in  the  belief  that  it 
would  be  acceptable  at  Washington.  As  a  preliminary 
the  negotiators  of  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic  prepared 
to  revise  the  law  of  nations  by  new  rules,  including 
not  only  cases  such  as  that  of  the  Alabama,  but  the 
Foreign  Enlistment  Acts  (1861-5).  The  next  step 
was  for  British  commissioners  to  confer  at  Washington 
with  an  equal  number  of  American  commissioners. 
The  British  selections  were  made  without  regard  to 
party ;  they  included  the  present  Marquis  of  Ripon, 
then  Lord  de  Grey,  Sir  Stafford  Northcote,  Sir  John 
Macdonald,  the  Canadian  Prime  Minister,  the  Oxford 
professor  of  international  law,  Montague  Bernard,  and 
naturally,  Sir  Edward  Thornton,  our  United  States 
representative.  After  deliberations  lasting  over  two 
months,  the  commissioners  in  the  May  of  1871  signed 
a  treaty,  the  general  criticism  on  which,  from  the 
English  point  of  view,  was  summed  up  in  Lord 
Russell's  objection  to  judge  past  conduct  by  new 

*  The  direct  claims  were  on  account  of  injuries  and  losses  actually 
caused  by  privateers.     The  indirect  claims,  indefinite  and  incalculable 
as  they  were,  included  losses  from  the  transfer  of  American  trade  to 
English  shipping  and  the  expense  of  pursuing  the  Confederate  cruisers. 
Z  353 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

retrospective  rules.  Between  the  American  and 
British  representatives,  the  discussion  centred  round 
the  United  States'  claims  on  account  of  damages  done 
by  Confederate  privateers  of  English  build  of  an 
indirect  as  well  as  a  direct  kind.  "Our  friends  here," 
wrote  Sir  Stafford  Northcote  from  Washington  to 
Lord  Gran ville,  1 4th  April  1871,  "  are  terrible  fellows 
at  using  every  possible  opportunity  to  bring  in  again 
and  again  claims  which  we  have  repeatedly  shut  out. 
De  Grey  will  never  get  all  the  credit  he  deserves  for 
his  strategy,  but  I  hope  he  will  get  some  for  the  result 
of  it."  This  result  was  the  Treaty  of  Washington, 
signed  8th  May  1871,  referring  the  Alabama  and 
kindred  claims  to  a  court  of  five  arbitrators  to  meet 
at  Geneva,  to  be  chosen  by  Queen  Victoria,  by  the 
President  of  the  United  States,  by  the  Emperor  of 
Brazil,  by  the  King  of  Italy,  and  by  the  President  of 
the  Swiss  Confederation.*  In  reply  to  the  chief 
criticism  on  the  compact,  the  making  of  all  the  con- 
cessions by  Great  Britain,  Lord  Granville  could  reply 
that  the  repeated  renewals  by  the  American  pleni- 
potentiary, Fish,  as  regards  indirect  claims,  had  all 
been  disallowed.  The  one  practical  question  was  not 
so  much  the  terms  as  the  policy  of  the  removal  by 
Great  Britain,  probably  at  a  great  cost,  of  a  long- 
standing and  vexatious  quarrel  with  her  kin  beyond 
seas.  The  indirect  claims,  however,  were  to  reappear 
at  Geneva,  and  to  inspire  Lord  Russell  with  a  threat 
of  blowing  into  the  air  the  treaty  and  the  Government. 

*  The  names  of  the  arbitrators  were  these  : — Sir  Alexander  Cockburn 
(England),  Charles  Francis  Adams  (United  States),  Viscount  Itajuba 
(Brazil),  Jacques  Staempfli  (Switzerland),  Count  Sclopis,  president  (Italy). 
The  legal  assessors  were  Lord  Tenterden  and  Roundell  Palmer  (England),, 
Bancroft  Davis  and  W.  M.  Evarts  (America). 

354 


The  Passing  of  Palmerston 

Then  came  the  presentation  before  the  Geneva  tribunal 
of  the  American  case  and  the  English  counter-case. 
On  1 5th  June  the  arbitrators  had  no  sooner  assembled 
at  Geneva  than  they  unanimously  declared  against 
even  entertaining  the  indirect  claims.  Historical 
manuals,  universally  accessible,  render  it  unnecessary 
to  pursue  the  transaction  in  all  its  details  and  results. 

Sir  Horace  Rumbold,  of  whose  despatches  from 
his  embassy  at  St  Petersburg  something  has  already- 
been  said,  complained  in  print  a  few  years  ago,  of 
Foreign  Office  ignorance  on  Lord  Granville's  second 
Secretaryship  of  State.  The  incoming  Foreign  Mini- 
ster, it  was  said,  on  the  eve  of  the  Franco- Prussian 
War  of  1870-1,  declared  the  European  horizon  to  be 
without  a  cloud.  The  true  facts  are  these.  When,  after 
Clarendon's  retirement,  6th  July  1870,  Granville  took 
over  the  department,  he  had  an  interview  with  Perma- 
nent Under-Secretary  Hammond,  who  remarked  that, 
with  the  exception  of  the  recent  murders  of  English- 
men at  Marathon  by  Greek  brigands,  then  the  subject 
of  diplomatic  communications  with  Athens,  he  knew 
nothing  likely  to  engage  seriously  the  incoming 
minister.  As  a  fact,  however,  Granville,  better  in- 
formed than  the  permanent  official,  not  only  was 
already  aware  of  the  impending  danger  between 
France  and  Germany,  but  was  actually  in  communica- 
tion with  our  ambassador  in  Paris,  Lord  Lyons,  in 
the  hope  of  preventing  hostilities.  The  exact  line  of 
English  diplomacy  after  the  war  had  begun  is  all 
which  it  concerns  us  here  to  follow.  The  notion, 
popular  in  Prussia,  of  France  being  the  English  favour- 
ite, increased  the  difficulty  of  the  communications 
between  Berlin  and  London.  Bismarck  himself  had 

355 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

openly  given  out  that  Great  Britain  might  and  ought 
to  have  prevented  France  from  entering  upon  the 
contest ;  a  Prussian  victory,  he  added,  could  alone 
preserve  the  balance  of  power  in  Europe ;  for  that 
reason  it  ought  to  be  desired  by  England.  The 
opening  of  the  campaign  coincided  with  a  vague  but 
unfortunate  Prussian  complaint  that  by  not  forbidding 
the  export  of  arms  and  coal  to  France  the  British 
Cabinet  had  shown  too  clearly  its  inability  to  be  really 
impartial.  "  As  for  Lord  Granville,"  said  Bismarck, 
"  I  know  him  of  old."  *  The  first  danger  against 
which  Lord  Granville  had  to  be  on  his  guard 
was  lest  either  belligerent  should  violate  the  treaties 
guaranteeing  Belgium  or  Luxemburg.  The  immi- 
nence of  that  contingency  revealed  itself  in  a  secret 
document  published  by  The  Times,  25th  July  1870. 
The  common  guarantees  of  Europe  made  Belgium  an 
independent  nation  in  1839 ;  by  signing  those  documents 
France  and  Prussia  had  both  solemnly  pledged  them- 
selves to  prevent  any  violation  not  only  of  Belgium  her- 
self, but  of  Luxemburg  also.  The  compact  now 
flashed  by  the  newspaper  upon  the  world  showed  that 
in  the  August  of  1866,  through  Benedetti  as  repre- 
sentative of  Napoleon  III.,  France  agreed  not  to 
oppose  Prussia's  retention  of  her  advantages  gained  in 
the  recent  war  with  Austria.  In  return  France  received 
permission  from  Prussia  in  the  person  of  Bismarck 

*  This  I  have  the  authority  of  Lord  Granville  himself  for  characteris- 
ing as  a  delusion  on  the  part  of  the  German  Chancellor.  "  I  never," 
said  to  me  in  1886  Lord  Granville  himself,  "saw  Bismarck,  but  once,  and 
then  for  a  few  minutes  only  during  my  attendance  on  the  queen  abroad. 
It  was  in  a  garden  ;  while  we  were  chatting  we  suddenly  heard  the  cry 
*  sharp,'  the  cant  word  signifying  the  sovereign's  approach.  On  this 
Bismarck  suddenly  disappeared  in  a  shrubbery  ;  after  that  dive  into  the 
bushes  I  never  saw  him  again." 

356 


The  Passing  of  Palmerston 

to  annex  Luxemburg  and  Belgium.  This  amazing 
disclosure  seemed  a  scandal  to  international  morality  ; 
it  was  followed  by  an  undignified  squabble  between 
the  Foreign  Offices  of  Paris  and  Berlin,  to  throw  upon 
each  other  the  exclusive  blame  for  the  Benedetti- 
Bismarck  perfidy.  Lord  Granville  at  once  intervened 
by  pointing  out  that  there  was  no  alternative  now  but 
for  the  French  emperor  and  the  Prussian  king  to  set 
their  hands  to  an  agreement  engaging  both  of  them, 
during  the  war  and  for  twelve  months  afterwards,  not 
to  violate  either  Belgium  or  Luxemburg. 

Obligations  to  Belgium  thus  being  fulfilled,  our 
diplomacy  took  steps  for  circumscribing  the  area  of 
the  Franco- Prussian  struggle.  The  probability  of  its 
extension  arose  from  the  bitter  rivalry  of  two  Continen- 
tal diplomatists.  In  1866-7,  Count  Beust  had  just 
become  Austrian  Chancellor  and  Foreign  Minister ; 
he  notoriously  aimed  at  retaliating  on  Bismarck  for 
his  late  humiliation  of  his  country  and  of  himself. 
French  resentment  of  English  neutrality  now  became 
as  keen  as  that  of  Germany.  The  cause  of  France,  so 
it  was  said  in  Paris,  was  the  cause  of  peace.  British 
diplomacy,  by  removing  the  possibility  of  union  between 
the  courts  of  St  Petersburg  and  Berlin,  might  have  at 
once  secured  the  peace  of  Europe.  Our  Foreign 
Office,  however,  established  an  understanding  between 
the  Powers  that  none  of  them  would  take  part  in  the 
struggle  themselves  or  renounce  their  neutrality  with- 
out due  notice  to  the  others. 

In  September  1870  the  Empire  fell.  Prussian 
diplomacy  favoured  its  restoration  as  a  help  towards 
international  peace.  Downing  Street  insisted  that 
the  native  French  republic  would  render  peace  nego- 

357 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

tiations  safer  and  easier  than  an  empire  restored 
by  foreign  arms.  From  4th  September  1870  to 
the  actual  signature  of  peace,  February  1871,  the 
twofold  and  consistently  pursued  aim  of  English 
diplomacy  was  an  armistice  between  the  combat- 
ants and  the  creation  of  such  a  polity  in  Paris  as 
would  conduce  to  the  close  of  the  war.  The  diffi- 
culties besetting  the  accomplishment  of  this  object 
was  increased  by  the  fact  that,  to  Lord  Granville's 
personal  grief,  the  managing  men  in  France,  though, 
like  Jules  Favre,  excellent  and  even  brilliant,  were 
not,  as  our  Paris  ambassador  put  it,  accustomed  to  a 
Corps  Diplomatique.  The  other  trials  to  Lord 
Granville's  tact  and  patience  may  be  summed  up  in 
the  series  of  interviews  with  Thiers  in  which  the 
French  statesman,  a  friend  and  admirer  of  Lord 
Granville's  father  when  ambassador  in  Paris,  laboured 
to  convince  him  that  the  first  object  of  English  policy 
from  a  purely  selfish  point  of  view,  should  be  to  risk 
a  quarrel  with  united  Germany  rather  than  connive  at 
the  dismemberment  of  France.  In  any  narrative  of 
English  diplomacy  during  the  actual  progress  of  the 
war,  much  space  must  be  given  to  Adolphe  Thiers' 
diplomatic  pilgrimage  through  Europe  and  his  series 
of  conversations  with  his  personal  friend  of  long 
standing,  the  English  Secretary  of  State.  These 
talks  are  given  with  such  fulness  and  animation  in 
such  standard  volumes  as  Lord  Fitzmaurice's  bio- 
graphy of  Granville,  that  the  merest  reference  to  them 
is  alone  needed  here.  In  Thiers  the  diplomatist  did 
not  efface  the  vivacious  and  patriotic  orator ;  in  his 
warmest  moments  he  remained  a  polished  man  of  the 
world.  Dealing  with  another  man  of  the  world  like 

358 


The  Passing  of  Palmerston 

Granville  he  found  the  pill  of  failure  gilded,  but  his 
visit  bootless.  "  I  had  the  honour  to  know,  and  did 
my  best  in  my  small  way  to  commend  myself  to  your 
lordship's  father  when  you  were  a  youth  and  he  was 
British  ambassador  in  Paris ;  consider  how  well 
France  behaved  to  England  during  the  Indian  Mutiny 
in  not  taking  advantage  of  her  weakness  to  do  her 
a  bad  turn."  Such  was  the  burden  of  the  arguments 
for  intervention  with  Prussia  in  favour  of  France  in 
these  interviews  between  the  French  and  English 
statesmen.  On  one  occasion  Thiers  had  pleaded  his 
cause  with  so  much  fervour  as  to  sink  back  in  his 
chair  exhausted.  There  he  remained  perfectly  silent 
and  motionless.  He  showed  no  signs  of  breathing. 
His  English  host,  in  his  own  words  to  me,  "felt  no 
doubt  that  the  '  old  man  eloquent '  had  breathed  his 
last."  "  While,"  continued  Lord  Granville,  "  about 
to  call  for  help,  I  thought  I  should  be  making  a  scene 
for  nothing  if,  after  all,  Thiers  was  only  asleep.  I 
therefore  proceeded  as  noisily  as  I  could  to  break  a 
huge  piece  of  coal  and  banged  the  fire-irons  about. 
My  visitor  immediately  awoke  and,  with  a  placid 
smile,  continued  his  appeal  more  fresh  than  he  had 
begun  it."  The  colloquial,  not  less  than  the  epistolary, 
processes  of  our  Foreign  Office  at  this  period  included 
the  discussion  of  many  proposals  for  the  return  of  the 
ex-empress  Eugenie  to  France  after  her  arrival  in 
England.  Why  should  she  not,  as  a  de  facto  monarch 
during  the  time  of  transition,  negotiate  through  her 
ministers  peace  terms  with  Bismarck  ?  As  regards  the 
exertion  of  British  influence  with  Prussia  to  moderate 
her  terms,  Lord  Fitzmaurice  has  conclusively  estab- 
lished this  never  to  have  been  in  question.  "  Palmer- 

359 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

ston,"  said  Granville,  "wasted  the  strength  of  England 
by  brag ;  it  is  not  for  me  fruitlessly  to  spend  any 
moral  influence  we  may  have  by  laying  down  general 
principles  to  which  nobody  will  attend.  Above  all 
(was  the  exact  remark  I  heard  from  Lord  Granville), 
I  had  to  abstain  from  anything  which  would  only 
aggravate  Germany  and  encourage  France  to  hold 


out." 


360 


CHAPTER  XIV 

OFFICIAL   AND    UNOFFICIAL   DIPLOMATISTS 

The  inner  organisation  of  the  Foreign  Office — Permanent  and 
Assistant  Under-Secretaries — Lord  Hammond,  Lord  Tenterden, 
Lord  Pauncefote,  Lord  Currie  and  Lord  Sanderson — Amalga- 
mation of  the  Foreign  Office  and  the  Diplomatic  Service — 
Foreign  Office  qualifications  and  examinations — Military, 
Naval  and  Commercial  Attaches — Embassy  Chaplains  and 
Doctors — Unofficial  Diplomacy — David  Urquhart — Laurence 
Oliphant — Diplomatists  in  the  House  of  Commons — H.  O. 
Waterfield — A  promising  generation  of  Diplomatists — The 
Commercial  side  of  Foreign  Policy — King's  Messengers — Social 
duties  of  the  Ambassador — Palmerston's  "  Secret  Agents  " — 
Diplomacy  at  Gunnersbury — Madame  Novikoff — Max  Schle- 
singer — "  Jingoism  "  and  the  anti-Russian  feeling. 

THE  various  domiciles  and  migrations  of  the 
Foreign  Office,  down  to  its  settlement  in 
Downing  Street,  have  been  described  in  an  earlier 
chapter,  with  the  help  of  the  fuller  information  to  be 
found  in  Sir  Edward  Hertslet's  authoritative  work  on 
the  subject.*  The  movements  and  the  managers  of 
English  diplomacy  during  sixty-eight  years  of  the 
foregoing  survey  (1793  to  1861)  are  all  comprised  in 
the  Downing  Street  period.  During  Russell's  second 
Secretaryship,  the  department  migrated,  in  the  August 
of  1 86 1,  to  two  houses,  Nos.  7  and  8,  in  Whitehall 
Gardens.  The  plans  for  the  group  of  buildings  to-day 
containing  both  the  Foreign,  the  Colonial,  and  the 
India  Offices  were  approved,  among  others,  by  Lord 
Palmerston  ;  he  did  not  live  to  witness  the  concentra- 

*  Recollections  of  the  Old  Foreign  Office  (John  Murray,  1901.) 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

tion  of  the  three  Imperial  departments  beneath  a 
single  roof  in  the  July  of  1868.  The  increase  in 
Foreign  Office  work,  had,  even  in  Palmerston's  time, 
necessitated  additions  to  the  staff.  Changes  of  that 
kind  had  of  course  begun  before  his  day.  At  the  end 
of  the  eighteenth  century  one  Under-Secretary  sufficed. 
Soon  after  that,  assistant  Under-Secretaries  were 
called  for.  Before  the  next  century  had  closed  the 
chief  Under-Secretary  had  been  supplemented  by  two 
assistant  Under-Secretaries;  in  1898  an  additional 
Under-Secretary  was  appointed.  To-day,  therefore, 
there  are  one  chief  Under-Secretary  and  three  assistants. 
The  absolute  and  responsible  head  of  the  department 
is  the  "  Parliamentary  "  Secretary  of  State.  He  it  is 
who  in  theory  conducts  the  interviews  and  the  corre- 
spondence of  the  department,  communicates  alike 
with  foreign  diplomatists,  government  offices  and 
private  individuals.  The  organisation  over  which  he 
presides  is  divided  into  various  sections,  such  as 
"Eastern,"  "Western,"  "China,"  "Treaty,"  "Com- 
mercial," and  so  forth.  These  sections  are  arranged 
in  groups,  supervised  by  the  various  Assistant  Under- 
Secretaries.  They  in  turn  are  responsible  to  the 
Permanent  Under-Secretary  (the  non-Parliamentary 
minister),  who  comes  directly  next  to  the  Secretary  of 
State.  The  operation  of  the  system  may  thus  be 
compared  to  that  of  a  graduated  series  of  sieves.  One 
of  the  Office's  divisional  controllers  will  send  any 
important  papers  there  may  be  to  his  supervising 
Assistant  Under-Secretary  ;  this  functionary  will,  if  he 
thinks  it  necessary,  refer  to  the  Permanent  Under- 
Secretary  who,  in  his  turn,  if  it  be  of  sufficient  import- 
ance, will  submit  the  matter  to  the  Secretary  of  State. 

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Official  and  Unofficial  Diplomatists 

Thus,  to  illustrate  the  routine  by  purely  hypothetical 
figures,  out  of  every  hundred  papers  received  at  the 
Foreign  Office,  ten  may  be  seen  by  the  Assistant 
Under-Secretary,  five  by  the  Permanent  Under- 
secretary, two  by  the  Secretary  of  State. 

An  opportunity  of  some  personal  remarks  on  the 
leading  members  of  the  Foreign  Office  staff  has  pre- 
sented itself  in  an  earlier  part  of  this  work.  An 
accurate  and  exhaustive  account  of  the  interior  economy 
of  the  department  would  show  the  influence  on  the 
current  diplomacy  of  the  time  of  a  permanent  official 
like  the  late  Lord  Hammond  (Permanent  Under- 
secretary from  1854  to  1873)  to  have  been  not  less 
than  was  that  of  the  late  Sir  Robert  Herbert  on  the 
administration  of  our  dependencies  during  his  long- 
term  at  the  Colonial  Office,  or  of  his  illustrious  prede- 
cessors, Sir  Henry  Taylor,  Sir  Frederick  Rogers,  Lord 
Blachford,  Herman  Merivale.  Was,  by  way  of  example, 
Lord  Clarendon  considering  the  best  man  for  a  special 
mission  abroad,  Hammond's  suggestions  were  always 
invited  ;  if  his  initiative  found  less  scope  under  other 
chiefs  of  the  office,  it  was  because  his  last  chief,  Gran- 
ville,  like  Palmerston  and  Malmesbury,  actively  kept 
up  the  exceptional  acquaintance  given  them  by  social  ac- 
cidents with  the  rising  talent  that  adorned  their  province. 

Hammond's  excellence  as  a  public  servant  was  im- 
paired by  a  single  defect,  and  that  the  result  of  his  ability 
and  zeal :  he  insisted  on  doing  all  the  work  of  the  office 
himself;  his  colleagues  thus  became  simple  copyists. 
As  a  consequence,  he  left  behind  him  scarcely  any  tho- 
roughly trained  clerks  ;  it  was  therefore  reserved  for 
those  who  came  after  him  gradually  to  make  good  the 
deficiency.  Hammond,  however,  had  an  admirable 

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The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

successor  in  the  third  Lord  Tenterden.  Quite  first- 
rate  as  an  official,  intellectually  keen,  clever  as  a  man, 
Tenterden  was  followed  by  Sir  Julian,  afterwards  Lord 
Pauncefote,  who  died  as  our  representative  at  Wash- 
ington, but  who  was  of  a  material  which  supplies  rather 
great  administrators  than  Under- Secretaries  perfectly 
at  home  in  their  department.  The  grip  of  Colonial 
questions  secured  by  Pauncefote  during  his  years  at 
the  Colonial  Office  before  going  to  the  Foreign  Office, 
made  him  invaluable  at  a  time  when  our  German 
relations  in  Africa  caused  Colonial  and  purely  foreign 
questions  to  overlap  each  other.  On  New  Guinea  and 
its  international  relations,  Pauncefote  spoke  with  the 
authority  of  a  Cabinet  minister.  This  was  admitted 
by  Gladstone,  who  (6th  March  1885)  called  the 
Pauncefote  settlement  the  only  way  not  only  of  deal- 
ing with  the  South  African  matter,  but  of  removing 
the  bar  to  Egyptian  settlement.*  Pauncefote's  suc- 
cessor, the  brilliant,  if  rather  flighty,  worker  and 
thoroughly  trained  man-of-the-world  who  died  Lord 
Currie,  presented  a  complete  contrast  to  Pauncefote 
himself.  Combining  the  socially  exclusive  preju- 
dices of  aristocratic  Whiggism,  a  maternal  heritage 
from  the  Wodehouses,  with  the  strong,  clear  business 
instinct  of  the  middle-class,  he  remained,  till  he  started 
as  an  ambassador  in  1894,  a  personification  of  the 
Foreign  Office  genius  and  tradition,  especially  in  their 
relations  with  the  society  in  which  he  shone  and  the 
press  whose  occasional  usefulness  to  his  department 
he  appreciated.  "  Gladstone,"  Lord  Granville  used  to 
say,  "on  these  subjects  has  no  knowledge.  I  have 
not  the  art  of  pretending  to  give  bread  and  giving 

*  Lord  Fitzmaurice's  Grawville,  vol.  ii.  pp.  430-2. 
364 


Official  and  Unofficial  Diplomatists 

only  a  stone.  Consequently  the  newspaper  writers 
who  must  have  early  information  about  foreign  affairs 
or  write  as  if  they  had  it,  do  not  like  us  as  well  as,  if 
we  managed  a  little  better,  they  might."  Here  Currie's 
address,  tact  and  insight  into  journalistic  human  nature 
proved  invaluable.  He  seemed  superficially  the  most 
communicative  of  men,  but  never  told  a  State  secret. 
His  successor's,  Lord  Sanderson's  peerage,  formed  a  fit 
reward  for  the  long  and  industrious  career  during 
which  that  official  had  successively  scaled  the  whole 
length  of  the  Foreign  Office  ladder  ;  the  last  rung  was 
reached  when,  on  Currie's  going  to  Constantinople, 
Lord  Sanderson  naturally  stepped  into  the  vacant 
place.  The  chief  change  since  then  witnessed  in  the 
Secretariate  has  been  the  selection  of  the  former 
ambassador  at  St  Petersburg,  Sir  Charles  Hardinge, 
as  Lord  Sanderson's  successor.  Of  that  appointment 
it  may  be  noticed  that  it  united  the  whole  Foreign 
Office  Staff  and  diplomatic  body  in  its  praise. 

The  amalgamation  of  the  Foreign  Office  and  dip- 
lomacy, illustrated  or  implied  in  several  of  the  instances 
already  given,  was  carried  out  in  1891,  under  the 
recommendation  of  the  Royal  Commission  of  1890. 
To  the  category  of  Whitehall  officials  successfully 
converted  into  foreign  diplomatists  belonged  also  Sir 
Michael  Henry  Herbert,  Sidney  Herbert's  son,  the 
thirteenth  Earl  of  Pembroke's  brother,  who  eventually 
reaching  our  Washington  Embassy,  so  completely 
won  the  affection  of  the  occupant  of  the  White  House, 
that  President  Roosevelt  unconsciously  fell  into  the 
habit  of  addressing  him  by  his  pet  name  of  "  Mungo." 
To  these  names  should  be  added  our  present  minister 
at  Brussels,  Sir  Arthur  Hardinge,  originally  trans- 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

ferred  from  the  Office  at  home  to  Zanzibar.  In  other 
capacities  the  same  principle  of  interchange  has  been 
exemplified  in  the  cases  of  the  second  Lord  Dufferin, 
Lord  Hugh  Grosvenor,  Cecil  Spring- Rice  and 
Conway  Thornton.  The  cosmopolitan  influences  of 
several  famous  Englishmen  had  long  been  exerted 
in  favour  of  this  fusion.  The  late  Lord  Acton,  the 
first  Lord  Houghton,  and  specially  the  late  Sir 
M.  E.  Grant- Duff,  had  long  periodically  cited  foreign 
precedents  that  fully  justified  the  scheme.  In 
Germany,  the  Bunsen  family  supplied  more  than  one 
proof  of  its  success.  In  France  the  argument  was 
strengthened  by  the  famous  name  of  Jusserand. 
English  experience  has  not  proved  less  favourable. 
Generally,  it  may  be  said,  the  fusion  tends  to  prevent 
officials  abroad  losing  touch  with  home  feeling,  or 
from  drifting  into  a  state  of  decorative  indolence. 
On  the  other  hand  it  keeps  the  Whitehall  men  from 
crystallising  into  bureaucrats  with  an  horizon  limited 
by  the  desk  at  which  they  write.  Too  sweepingly 
or  hastily  carried  out,  the  process  might  embarrass 
the  permanent  heads  of  the  Foreign  Office.  During 
the  first  six  years  foreign  employment  should  clearly 
be  optional,  to  avoid  the  risk  of  the  transfer  coming 
before  the  Whitehall  men  were  receiving  salaries 
equal  to  its  cost.  A  democratised  diplomacy,  or 
Foreign  Office,  is  not  only  an  impossibility  in  itself ; 
it  has  never  yet  had  a  place  in  the  enlightened  pro- 
jects of  the  most  extreme  reformer.  Sheer  ignorance 
and  incapacity  are  excluded  from  the  service  by  the 
searching  examinational  ordeal,  which  for  more  than 
half  a  century  has  barred  entrance  to  it,  and  mitigated, 
if  not  entirely  abolished,  the  old  favouritism  that 


Official  and  Unofficial  Diplomatists 

introduced  into  the  department  young  men  whose 
only  qualifications  were  the  good  manners  that  belong- 
to  birth  and  breeding. 

The  Order  in  Council  of  1855,  establishing  the  Civil 
Service  Commissioners,  made  itself  felt  at  the  Foreign 
Office  the  next  year.  The  first  recipient  of  a  Foreign 
Office  nomination,  conditional  on  satisfying  the  com- 
missioners, was  Victor  Buckley  ;  nominated  in  Decem- 
ber 1856,  duly  examined  by  the  Civil  Service  Commis- 
sion, he  received  a  certificate  dated  I2th  January  1857. 
At  this  examination  there  was  no  competition.  Mr 
Buckley's  happy  and  easy  experience  has  seldom, 
if  ever,  been  repeated  since.  To-day  the  Secretary 
of  State's  nomination  for  what  is  still  practically  a 
close  office,  will  not  be  of  much  good  to  its  possessor, 
unless  he  is  generally  up  to  the  mark  of  success  in 
the  Indian  Civil,  or  the  struggle  for  an  entrance 
scholarship  at  a  good  Oxford  or  Cambridge  college.  At 
Oxford,  by  the  by,  unless  the  statutes  should  ab- 
solutely forbid  such  a  course,  there  may  be  nothing 
legally  to  prevent  college  fellows  from  electing  the 
candidate  who  promises  to  be  the  most  agreeable 
member  of  their  society,  rather  than  the  man  whose 
paper-work  is  best.  Practically  by  its  strong  repro- 
bation the  public  opinion  of  the  place  renders 
such  an  abuse  impossible.  In  the  same  way  a 
Secretary  of  State  theoretically  may  have  it  in  his 
power  to  bring  into  his  department  someone  who 
has  not  submitted  himself  to  the  Civil  Service  Com- 
mission. Practically  the  thing  will  never  be  done. 
None  the  less,  the  Foreign  Office  and  diplomacy  will 
preserve  the  tradition  of  social  prestige,  and  will  run 
in  families.  The  British  ambassador  in  1907,  is 

367 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

lineally  descended  from  a  sixteenth-century  Bertie, 
who  filled  the  same  position  in  the  same  capital  during 
the  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth.  On  the  other  hand 
the  most  recent  among  our  very  greatest  ambassadors, 
as  well  as  the  most  versatile,  the  first  Marquis  of 
Dufferin,  reached  the  Paris  embassy  without  any 
training  in  regular  diplomacy  or  at  the  Foreign 
Office.*  Having  pacified  Syria,  he  not  only  created 
Canada,  but  taught  the  Canadians  to  believe  in  their 
country  and  themselves.  Even  diplomatists  of  this 
calibre,  if  again  forthcoming,  will  not  render  entirely 
obsolete  Mr  T.  G.  Bowies'  definition  of  the  ambas- 
sador a  la  mode  as  a  clerk  in  gold  lace  at  the  end  of 
a  telegraph  wire,  only  acting  on  orders  from  White- 
hall, and  daily  reporting  to  the  Foreign  Secretary. 
Formerly  questions  were  seldom  asked  at  West- 
minster about  treaty-making  till  the  process  was 
complete.  To-day  the  Secretary  of  State,  or  his 
representative,  is  liable  to  interrogatories  at  each 
new  state  of  a  pending  negotiation.  At  the  same 
time,  social  position  and  diplomatic  accomplishments 
have  ceased  to  be  the  only  qualifications  necessary 
to  our  representatives  abroad.  Every  year  sees  our 
foreign  relations  charged  increasingly  with  commercial 
issues.  Our  consuls,  if  they  are  to  do  their  work 
properly,  must  have  the  knowledge  of  trade  experts. 
Our  ambassadors  will  be  the  better  up  to  their  work  if 
they  have  been  trained  in  commerce  and  finance  as  well 
as  in  Imperialism,  like  Lord  Cromer.  They  must, 
for  other  reasons  than  their  personal  authority,  have 

*  This  probably  makes  the  case  unique  ;  Mr  James  Bryce,  now  our 
representative  at  Washington,  having  been  Foreign  Under-Secretary 
in  1886. 

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Official   and  Unofficial  Diplomatists 

the  confidence  of  the  trading  classes,  and  so  act  not 
less  as  the  fiduciaries  of  English  enterprise  than  as 
the  plenipotentiaries  of  their  sovereign. 

The  details  of  the  organisation  controlled  by  the 
Secretary  of  State  at  home  have  been  already  given. 
Something  may  now  be  said  about  the  surroundings 
of  an  ambassador.  First,  as  to  his  attaches  from  the 
Admiralty  or  the  War  Office.  Early  in  the  nineteenth 
century  isolated  officers  of  the  army  and  navy  were 
sent  on  special  missions  to  various  courts.  This  was 
done  under  the  authority  of  the  king  himself  or  of 
the  Secretary  for  War.  Nor  are  any  such  missions 
mentioned  in  the  Foreign  Office  archives.  The 
earliest  appointment  of  a  military  attache  which  can  be 
traced  belongs  to  1858.  The  War  Office  records  show 
no  salary  to  have  been  paid  to  a  military  attache 
before  1865.  At  that  date  a  British  naval  attache 
had  existed  for  five  years  at  Paris.  In  1865,  too,  the 
struggle  between  North  and  South  led  to  the  ap- 
pointment of  a  second  naval  attach^  at  Washington  ; 
simultaneously  with  this,  the  naval  post  at  Paris  was 
abolished,  or,  more  accurately,  the  permanent  naval 
attache  in  France  was  replaced  by  a  travelling  attache. 
In  1882,  a  second  European  naval  attach^  was  ac- 
credited the  courts  of  the  Maritime  Powers  generally. 
This  officer  moved  so  rapidly  between  Europe  and 
America,  that  for  some  time  he  must  have  been 
considered  equal  to  the  duties  of  both  hemispheres. 
Gradually,  however,  the  institution  of  two  naval 
attaches,  one  for  the  European,  another  for  the 
American  side  of  the  Atlantic,  seems  to  have  estab- 
lished itself.  As  time  went  on  these  numbers  have 

since  increased,   till  at  the  present  time  the  military 
2A  369 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

attaches  reach  a  total  of  twelve,  of  whom  one  is 
allotted  to  the  whole  American  continent,  and 
the  rest  to  Europe.  So,  too,  with  the  six  naval 
attaches  now  existing ;  one  is  transatlantic, 
the  remaining  five  European.  There  are,  too, 
commercial  attaches,  five  in  all,  all  stationed  in 
Europe. 

In  theory,  of  course,  every  British  embassy  abroad 
and  its  precincts  stand  on  British  soil.  Self-sufficiency, 
as  well  as  inviolability,  was  one  of  the  ideas  associated 
with  the  residence  of  England's  representative  in 
capitals  beyond  sea.  Hence  the  sanctuary  rights 
which  soon  grew  up  round  the  embassy ;  the  gross 
abuse  of  these  afterwards  called  for  their  curtailment 
before  their  abolition.  In  early  days,  beneath  the 
ambassador's  roof  there  were  accumulated  stores  of  all 
the  necessities  of  daily  life.  The  embassy,  in  fact,  was 
not  only  a  house,  but  a  settlement,  self-contained  so 
completely  that  its  inmates  seldom  needed  to  supply 
their  wants  from  local  traders.  Spiritual  and  physical 
needs  were  both  provided  for.  To-day  the  embassy 
doctor  is  generally  confined  to  Oriental  posts  such  as 
Constantinople,  Teheran  and  Tokio,  where  a  medical 
man  is  paid  by  the  State  to  attend  the  mission.  In  all 
other  cases  embassy  doctors  are  purely  honorary.  The 
embassy  chaplain  as  a  State  servant  is  a  Church  of 
England  clergyman.  Should  the  ambassador  belong 
to  any  other  communion,  he  would,  at  his  own  charge, 
find  a  minister  of  his  particular  faith.  The  diplomatic 
posts  now  equipped  with  chaplains  are  Athens, 
Berne,  Christiania,  Copenhagen,  Constantinople,  The 
Hague,  Madrid,  Munich,  Paris,  Stockholm,  Tokio, 

Vienna. 

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Official  and  Unofficial  Diplomatists 

Unofficial  diplomacy  has  from  time  to  time,  as 
regards  activity  and  influence,  competed  not  unsuccess- 
fully with  the  agencies  controlled  by  our  Foreign 
Office.  In  some  cases,  too,  it  has  provided  itself  with 
an  organisation  of  its  own  as  elaborate  perhaps  and  as 
effective  as  that  of  Whitehall.  Such  international 
agencies,  uncontrolled  by  and  occasionally  pitting 
themselves  against  the  Secretary  of  State,  have 
often  been  extra-parliamentary  in  their  operation ; 
during  the  fifties  they  were  strenuously  personified 
in  Richard  Cobden  and  David  Urquhart.  Cobden's 
mission  was  to  counterwork  Palmerston's  Turco- 
philism ;  Urquhart's  to  stimulate  it  and  expose  a 
veiled  and  venal  subserviency  to  Russia.  To-day 
Urquhart's  most  practical  monument  is  the  Turkish- 
bath,  where  stands  his  bust  in  Jermyn  Street.  This 
place  reproduces  as  nearly  as  may  be  that  part  of 
Urquhart's  house  at  Watford  always  kept  at  a 
temperature  of  from  160  to  180  degrees  and  doing 
duty  as  a  waiting-room  for  visitors.  Urquhart  him- 
self was  only  five  years  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
when  member  for  Stafford,  from  1847  to  J852.  His 
great  authority  as  the  apostle  of  Russophobia  was 
exercised  through  provincial  channels.  A  small, 
loosely-knit  man,  with  a  strikingly  intelligent  ex- 
pression, a  purely  Anglo-Saxon  fairness  of  com- 
plexion and  lightness  of  hair  strangely  contrasting 
with  his  Oriental  habits,  he  showed  his  taste  in 
costume  by  an  unobtrusiveness  which  won  him,  from 
some  of  the  "dandies"  his  contemporaries,  the 
compliment  of  being  the  one  well-dressed  man 
outside  their  set.  He  spoke,  as  he  wrote,  with 
extreme  rapidity ;  he  knew,  however,  exactly  the 

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The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

temper  of  those  he  addressed ;  he  had  weighed 
beforehand  every  syllable  and  every  gesture.  Un- 
like Palmerston,  the  object  of  his  lifelong  distrust, 
he  never  had  the  ear  of  St  Stephen's.  His  most 
successful  and  characteristic  achievement  was  the  for- 
mation of  the  political  committees  which  by  leaflets, 
lectures  and  personal  house-to-house  visits,  proselytised 
among  the  mechanics  and  artisans  of  the  Northern 
Midlands.  Urquhart  had  honestly  persuaded  himself 
that  he  faithfully  represented  the  traditional  Tory 
doctrine  about  Russia  as  impressed  on  his  followers 
during  the  Oczakow  episode  by  the  younger  Pitt. 
His  vehemence  seldom  outstripped  his  knowledge. 
His  speeches  and  his  writings,  especially  his  Past  and 
Present  of  Russia  and  his  best  book  of  all,  The  Pillars 
of  Hercules,  are  generally  free  from  extravagance  of 
sentiment  or  expression  ;  they  contain  little  more  than 
a  clear  reflection  of  the  international  ideas  current  in 
clubs  and  drawing-rooms  from  the  days  of  the  Crimean 
War  to  those  of  the  Bulgarian  troubles.  Imperious, 
intensely  aristocratic  as  well  as  autocratic,  yet  gracious 
and  urbane,  Urquhart  exercised  over  reactionary  re- 
publicans, over  high  Tories,  over  ultra-democrats,  the 
same  kind  of  personal  fascination  belonging  to  most 
born  leaders  of  men  ;  the  last  survivor  of  his  disciples, 
the  eloquent  and  impassioned  Joseph  Cowen,  com- 
pared it  to  that  universally  recognised  in  Joseph 
Mazzini.  Urquhart's  addresses,  periodically  delivered 
in  the  provinces,  ingeniously  presented  diplomacy  as  a 
kind  of  handmaid  to  international  ethics.  This 
was  the  modernising  of  an  idea  which  had  been 
laboured  by  the  Czar  Alexander  I.  in  more  than 
one  of  his  despatches  belonging  to  the  Tilsit 

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Official  and  Unofficial  Diplomatists 

period.*  To  Mr  C.  Dobson  Collett,  former  editor  of 
Urquhart's  Diplomatic  Review,  I  am  indebted  for  many 
details  which  show  the  political  machinery  that  Urquhart 
used  at  home  to  have  been  effectively  copied  by 
the  leaders  of  the  Anti-Corn  Law  League.  In  our 
own  day  Urquhart's  organisation  supplied  the  model  for 
the  methods  of  that  Primrose  League,  studied  as  those 
methods  were  and  revived  by  the  founders  of  the  later 
organisation,  Sir  John  Gorst,  Sir  William  Marriott  and 
Lord  Randolph  Churchill. 

Urquhart's  notion  of  educating  the  constituencies 
into  a  correct  appreciation  of  the  real  drift  and  true 
issues  of  foreign  policy  was  revived  on  a  smaller  scale, 
and  after  an  interval  of  several  years,  by  a  gifted  man 
whose  visionary  eccentricities  and  strange  convictions 
interfered  with  his  doing  full  justice  to  his  great 
experience  and  real  skill  as  an  international  negotiator. 
Laurence  Oliphant  was  trained  in  the  Foreign  Office 
under  the  redoubtable  Hammond  ;  as  chargd  d'affaires 
at  Pekin  in  1862,  after  Lord  Elgin's  Chinese  mission, 
to  which  he  had  been  attached,  he  used  his  exceptional 
opportunities  industriously  to  study  the  problems  of 
the  further  East.  When  member  for  the  Stirling 
Burghs,  he  preferred  the  Press  to  Parliament  as  the 
medium  for  imparting  his  knowledge  of  affairs  to  the 
public.  Had  he  possessed  the  physical  vigour  and 
energy  of  Urquhart  he  might  have  afterwards 
successfully  carried  out  a  project,  originating  in 
Urquhart's  attempts  to  instruct  the  ten-pound  house- 
holders in  their  Imperial  concerns.  Oliphant's  plan 

*Born  in  1805,  dying  in  1877,  he  is  buried  at  Naples  with,  on  his 
tomb,  an  inscription  that  reflects  his  character  and  career — "  Vir  invicta 
constantia  priscae  reverentiae  inter  homines  restitutor.  Juris  gentium  pro 
pugnator,"  etc. 

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The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

was  to  supplement  the  deficiencies  of  Whitehall  with  an 
agency  for  supplying  clubs,  newspapers  and  private 
individuals  with  early  and  exclusive  intelligence,  which 
should  take  them  behind  the  scenes  of  Eastern  politics. 
Lord  Salisbury,  before  he  came  to  his  title,  delivered 
his  maiden  speech  in  the  Lower  House  on  a  domestic 
question — Lord  John  Russell's  University  commission. 
He  first,  however,  made  his  mark  during  the  debates 
on  the  Vienna  negotiations  of  the  Crimean  epoch ;  his 
criticisms  then  destined  him  to  be  the  Foreign  Minister 
of  his  party  in  the  future.  The  last  half  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  developed  other  notable  exponents  of 
foreign  policy  in  the  popular  Chamber.  Lord  Henry 
Lennox  was  a  born  orator,  who  from  no  want  of  fitness 
for  the  post  failed  to  become  Foreign  Under- Secretary, 
in  the  May  of  1 863.  By  a  very  striking  oration,  he  tried 
to  turn  the  tables  on  the  Gladstonian  denouncers  of 
Bourbon  rule  in  Naples  ;  his  method  was  to  detail  the 
sufferings  of  the  Bourbonists  themselves  in  Neapolitan 
prisons.  He  was  followed  by  a  man  whom  Disraeli  then 
complimented  on  the  best  first  speech  he  had  ever  heard 
— H.  A.  Butler  Johnstone.  This  speaker,  more  wisely 
using  his  advantages  of  wealth,  knowledge,  ability,  and 
without  his  infatuated  belief  in  the  Turk,  might  have 
left  a  name  in  the  foreign  statesmanship  of  his  time. 
Sir  Arthur  Otway,  Mr  Henry  Labouchere  and  Sir  M. 
E.  Grant  Duff  were  others  who  during  the  sixties, 
when  mixing  in  foreign  policy  debates,  spoke  not  from 
hearsay  but  from  personal  knowledge,  and  so,  each  in 
their  very  different  ways,  instructed  as  well  as  pleased 
the  Chamber.  The  House  of  Lords  had  of  course 
exceptional  advantages  for  debates  on  diplomacy.  In 
both  places  the  subject  seldom  fails  to  produce  at 

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Official  and  Unofficial  Diplomatists 

least  one  competent  critic  in  someone  often  hitherto 
forgotten  or  ignored.  Such  was  the  late  Joseph 
Cowen,  whose  elocution  was  not  the  less  effective 
because,  like  that  of  the  fourteenth  Lord  Derby  and 
of  Gladstone  himself,  it  never  quite  lost  the  Northern 
burr.  Cowen's  impassioned  declaration  for  Disraeli's 
Eastern  policy  in  the  discussions  of  a  generation  ago 
were  the  effective  and  unexpected  utterances  of  the 
last  Urquhartite. 

Elsewhere  than  in  Parliamentary  life  one  is  periodi- 
cally reminded  of  the  amount  of  available  but  entirely 
unutilised  knowledge  of  foreign  affairs  and  aptitude  for 
diplomatic  employment  existing  in  our  midst.  A  case 
in  point  is  that  of  Henry  Ottiwell  Waterfield,  formerly 
connected  with  the  Ottoman  Bank  in  London,  who 
died  comparatively  few  years  ago.  Captain  of  the 
school  at  Eton,  he  won  "King's"  with  flying  colours. 
At  Cambridge  he  was  much  impressed  by  Kinglake's 
Eotken  and  Eliot  Warburton's  The  Crescent  and  the 
Cross.  Soon  after  taking  his  degree  he  happened  to 
fall  in  with  William  Gifford  Palgrave  and  Percy 
S  my  the,  the  eighth  Lord  Strangford ;  that  successor 
to  George  S  my  the  of  Coningsby  associations  was  the 
most  accomplished  among  the  diplomatic  Orientalists 
of  the  time.  Often  in  the  company  of  these  acquaint- 
ances, Waterfield  travelled  up  and  down  European 
and  Asiatic  Turkey,  failed  to  find  the  longed-for 
opening  in  the  foreign  service  of  his  country,  and 
settled  down  into  a  successful  schoolmaster. 

Diplomatic  ambition  may  exist  without  diplo- 
matic aptitude.  Waterfield's  case,  however,  was 
only  one  of  several  in  which  definite  proof  had  been 
given  of  born  and  not  entirely  untrained  capacity.  It 

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The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

might  be  a  wise  economy  for  those  who  direct  inter- 
national affairs,  when  such  persons  are  brought  to 
their  notice,  to  consider  whether  their  tastes  and 
energies  should  not  be  utilised  by  the  State.  Lord 
Salisbury  himself  developed  into  a  great  Foreign 
Secretary  without  having  first  undergone  any  par- 
ticular training  for  that  department.  While  at  the 
Foreign  Office,  Lord  Salisbury  was  too  much 
occupied  with  State  affairs  to  aim  at  knowing  much  of 
its  interior  economy,  personal  life,  or  to  cultivate  an 
acquaintance  even  with  the  names  and  faces  of  his 
staff,  as,  during  their  most  anxious  periods,  had  been 
done  even  by  Clarendon  and  Aberdeen.  In  ad- 
ministration he  showed  the  sagacity  and  greatness 
inherited  from  his  Elizabethan  ancestors  ;  but  he  had 
no  time  to  think  of  making  the  office  a  school  for 
diplomatists,  though  in  his  earlier  days  he  had  used 
the  opportunities  of  the  India  Office  to  educate  many 
who  were  brought  under  his  eyes  into  a  knowledge  of 
and  an  interest  in  our  Asiatic  Empire.  The  contrast 
between  the  Lord  Salisbury  of  the  India  Office  and 
of  the  Foreign  Office  emphasised  itself  by  the  appoint- 
ment of  an  infantry  officer,  with  a  pleasant  manner 
but  no  knowledge  of  the  East,  Sir  Claude  Macdonald, 
to  Pekin  in  1896.  The  Secretary  of  State  (1907)  at 
the  time  these  lines  are  written  has  at  least  one 
advantage  over  his  recent  predecessors.  The  dearth 
of  good  officials  among  the  juniors,  resulting  from 
Lord  Hammond's  excess  of  personal  industry,  has 
ceased.  Lord  Sanderson  and  his  successor  in  the 
LTnder- Secretaryship  of  State,  Sir  Charles  Hardinge, 
have  together  educated  the  rising  talent  of  the  Office 

into  increasing  usefulness.     The  son  of  the  Sir  Louis 

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Official  and  Unofficial  Diplomatists 

Mallet  already  mentioned  in  these  pages,  from  an 
Under- Secretary  Assistant  has  become  private 
secretary  to  the  head  of  the  department.  No  servants 
of  the  department  can  have  been  brought  up  more 
thoroughly  in  the  right  way  than  Assistant  Under- 
secretaries Sir  Francis  Campbell  and  Mr  Walter 
Langley.  Among  their  colleagues  the  same  praise 
belongs  to  the  late  Sir  Joseph  Crowe's  son,  Mr  Eyre 
Crowe,  head  of  the  Western  (European)  department 
and  Secretary  of  The  Hague  Conference,  where  he 
did  so  well  as  to  get  his  C.B.  Other  members  of 
the  staff  of  whom  much  may  be  hoped  are  Messrs  R. 
F.  O.  Bridgeman,  G.  R.  Clerk,  Charles  Tufton, 
Victor  Wellesley. 

Of  the  consular  service,  something  has  been  done 
to  increase  the  efficiency.  The  examinational  test 
recently  adopted  does  not,  however,  sufficiently  exclude 
sheer  incapacity,  as  at  least  is  done  by  the  intellectual 
ordeal  which  bars  the  entrance  to  the  Foreign  Office. 
The  consular  salaries,  being  often  those  fixed  forty  or 
fifty  years  ago,  are  uniformly  inadequate,  and  do  not 
constitute  a  "  living- wage."  The  commercial  aspects 
of  our  foreign  service  are  still  apt  to  be  ignored  by 
Imperial  statesmen.  They  are  left  to  the  Parlia- 
mentary Under-Secretary  who,  with  a  soul  above 
such  details,  hands  them  over  to  his  clerks.  That  we 
did  not  fare  worse  in  our  Niger  negotiations  of  some 
years  ago  was  due  notoriously,  not  to  the  Foreign 
Office,  but  to  the  Board  of  Trade — which  has  practi- 
cally relieved  the  Foreign  Office  of  much  of  its  mere 
business  work— and  to  the  vigorous  action  of  Mr 
Chamberlain,  then  supreme.  Belgium  and  other 
foreign  states  give  consulships  increasingly  to  men  of 

377 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

proved  aptness  in  getting  commercial  concessions  from 
foreign  governments.  Hence  the  immense  progress  of 
late  made,  not  only  in  Africa,  but  in  China,  by  Russia 
as  well  as  Belgium.  We  are  an  Imperial  people 
because  we  are  a  trading  one.  Our  agents  in  distant 
countries  should  be  businesslike,  if  not  actually 
commercial  men.  To  secure  that,  the  first  requisite 
is  the  creation  of  a  new  department  at  Whitehall.  In 
other  words,  our  Foreign  Office  must  be  furnished 
with  an  Under-Secretary  whose  special  province  is  to 
superintend  the  commercial  duties  and  relationships  of 
Imperial  administration.  Few  departments  of  State, 
from  the  nature  of  their  employments,  can  be  in  more 
need  of  periodical  remodelling  than  the  Foreign 
Office. 

The  international  postal  system,  attended  as  it  is 
by  the  risk  of  foreign  despatches  being  opened  en 
route,  has  not  yet  quite  superseded  the  Foreign  Office 
Messengers.  These,  officially  styled  King's  Foreign 
Service  Messengers,  are  less  numerous  than  formerly, 
and  lack  the  perquisites  that  once  made  their  places  so 
valuable.  There  are  to-day  only  seven  of  them,  all 
too  much  occupied  and  too  incessantly  locomotive  to 
pervade,  as  they  formerly  seemed  to  do,  the  pleasure 
resorts  of  Continental  capitals,  and  especially  Paris. 
The  days  have  thus  gone  by  when  chance  customers 
dropping  into  Voisins'  for  lunch  found  the  tables  all 
occupied  or  bespoken,  while  a  visibly  awe-struck 
waiter  apologised  for  not  attending  to  the  casual 
stranger  on  the  plea  of  preoccupation  with  "Messieurs 
les  Ambassadeurs"  Nor  indeed  during  those  halcyon 
days  of  the  seventies,  vividly  painted  by  Charles 
Lever  in  his  O'Dowd  Papers,  could  the  Mercurys  of 

378 


Official  and  Unofficial  Diplomatists 

the  monarch's  Foreign  Service  personally  have 
suffered  from  comparison  with  the  Secretaries  of 
State  and  Councillors  whose  despatches  they  con- 
descended to  carry.  The  embassies  themselves  have 
become  political  workshops,  whose  industrial  economy 
in  its  departmental  divisions  is  modelled  on  that  of  the 
office  at  Whitehall.  Not  indeed  that  the  social  duties 
of  ambassador  or  ambassadress  have  become  less 
exacting  to  some  people  less  attractive  or  less  varied 
than  formerly.  On  the  contrary  the  unceasing  increase 
in  the  number  of  wealthy  British  subjects  pervading 
Continental  capitals  and  pushing  for  introductions  has 
greatly  added  to  the  social  cares  of  England's  re- 
presentatives abroad.  Anglo-Saxon  billionaires  and 
millionaires  from  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic  are  apt  to 
regard  "  their  embassy"  much  as  a  house-of-call,  where 
dinner  invitations  may  sometimes  be  picked  up  and 
letters  of  social  credit  obtained.  Here,  then,  is  scope 
enough  for  the  exercise  of  a  tact  as  discriminating  and 
a  decision  as  strong  and  as  courteous  as  were  re- 
quired when  the  chief,  if  not  only,  social  anxiety  of  the 
embassy  was  to  avoid  offence  and  to  extend  influence 
by  the  judicious  selection  of  guests  to  State  banquets 
and  entertainments. 

The  popular  and  fashionable  prestige  acquired 
under  the  Palmerstonian  regime  by  the  Foreign  Office 
at  home,  and  by  the  work  that  its  servants  did  abroad, 
has  already  been  mentioned.  London  in  the  sixties 
was  not  the  only  metropolis  in  which,  whatever  the 
place  might  be,  those  who  were  behind  the  scenes 
pointed  out  to  one  strange-looking  men  and  still 
stranger-looking  women.  These,  it  was  whispered,  were 
Palmerston's  secret  agents.  Three  of  these  gentlemen, 

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The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

according  to  their  own  mysterious  hints  about  them- 
selves, and  the  traditions  circulated  by  their  friends, 
survived  till  late  in  the  nineteenth  century  in  the 
persons  of  New  Yorkers  formerly  well  known  in 
London — the  Chevalier  Wikoff,  W.  H.  Hurlbert  and, 
above  all,  Samuel  Ward,  the  last  long  famous  as  the 
prince  of  gourmets  at  Delmonico's,  the  king  of  the 
lobby  at  Washington  and  a  standing  dish  in  his  day 
at  London  dinner-tables  and  in  fashionable  country- 
houses.  Had  he  flourished  in  Palmerstonian  days, 
some  too  lively  imaginations  might  have  detected  one 
of  Palmerston's  disguised  legionaries  in  the  nomadic- 
ally  diplomatic,  militant  citizen  of  the  world,  Baron 
Malortie,  who  was  so  often  one  of  the  guests  at  Lord 
Granville's  Walmer  Castle  parties.  These  gatherings 
brought  together  in  the  never  over-crowded  rooms 
a  happy  selection  of  international  experts  from  all 
countries.  Their  talk  served  for  an  introduction  behind 
the  scenes  of  European  politics.  At  Walmer,  during 
Lord  Granville's  Wardenship,  which  began  in  1865, 
might  at  one  time  have  been  seen  the  most  accom- 
plished and  unsparing  critic  of  English  diplomacy  then 
belonging  to  the  Foreign  Service.  This  was  Charles 
Lever,  on  furlough  from  his  Spezzia  consulship,  now 
exchanging  notes  on  our  foreign  shortcomings  with  the 
Chevalier  Blowitz  of  The  Times,  and  now  in  a  separate 
corner  reproaching  A.  W.  Kinglake  for  representing  the 
Crimean  invasion  as  a  French  intrigue,  adding,  "  Your 
book  is  no  more  history  than  the  Balaclava  charge  was 
war."  Elsewhere,  from  Lord  Arthur  Russell  of  the 
polished  and  placid  presence,  dropped  gentle  epigrams 
on  the  foreign  incidents  of  the  hour. 

Reunions  not  less  representative   were  held  else- 

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Official  and  Unofficial   Diplomatists 

where  than  at  Walmer  during  this  period.  I  have 
already  touched  in  passing  on  the  memorably  pleasant 
and  instructive  parties  at  the  Belgian  minister's,  M. 
Van  de  Weyer,  during  the  last  reign.  These  were  to 
their  own  period  what  a  little  earlier  had  been  the 
drawing-room  and  dining-table  of  Baron  Neumann, 
the  Austrian  diplomatist  who  married  Lady  Augusta 
Somerset,  the  Duke  of  Beaufort's  daughter.  Lord 
Beaconsfield's  Endymion  contains  a  sketch  from 
life  of  the  Rothschild  hospitalities  at  Gunnersbury. 
These  collected,  more  systematically  perhaps  than 
had  been  done  before,  the  men  who  make  and  those 
who  write  about  international  politics.  Not  even  under 
Delane's  later  administration  and  during  the  day  of 
De  Blowitz  did  The  Times  seem  in  such  intimate 
touch  with  the  men  who  pulled  the  strings  of  European 
policy  as  when  its  great  editor  was  in  weekly  inter- 
course with  Palmerston  first,  Disraeli  afterwards,  at 
the  Sunday  parties  in  the  suburban  villa  of  him  whom 
Disraeli  drew  as  the  banker,  "  Mr  Neuchatel."  At 
Gunnersbury,  too,  so  late  as  the  second  half  of  Delane's 
editorship,  were  arranged  by  him  with  his  fellow-guests 
at  "  Mr  Neuchatel's"  many  of  those  closely  packed 
half-columns  by  responsible  diplomatists  which  so  often 
gave  an  official  cachet  to  the  ''organ  of  the  City." 
Such,  especially  in  1870,  were  the  Communiques  of  the 
resigned  Secretary  of  State,  then  Mr  Otway,  about  the 
Black  Sea  surrender  to  Russia ;  such  was  Sir  Robert 
Meade's  remarkable  statement  on  the  same  subject 
which  set  the  diplomatists  of  Europe  speculating  as  to 
the  identity  of  "  Amicus."  In  this  connection  two 
more  persons  may  be  mentioned — one  of  them  a  lady  ; 
Madame  Novikoff  has  been  too  much  written  about  to 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

call  for  many  descriptive  words  here.  She  had  made 
her  debut  in  the  polite  world  of  these  islands  during  her 
brilliant  girlhood.  Retaining  much  of  her  beauty  and 
charm,  she  reappeared  in  London  during  the  seventies, 
and  became  the  Egeria  who  instructed  as  well  as 
fascinated  men  of  a  genius  not  less  widely  different  than 
J.  A.  Froude,  A.  W.  Kinglake  and  W.  E.  Gladstone. 
The  other  foreigner  now  referred  to  was  the 
London  correspondent  of  the  Kolnische  Zeitung. 
Max  Schlesinger  preceded  Sir  Mackenzie  Wallace  in 
acquainting  at  first  hand  with  the  mainsprings  of 
political  action  in  central  Europe  those  who  themselves, 
by  speech  or  pen,  instructed  the  English  public  in  the 
subject.  Had  Schlesinger  lived  in  the  days  of  Pitt  or 
Canning,  he  would  have  been  taken  on  by  the  Foreign 
Office.  As  it  was,  more  than  one  Secretary  of  State 
found"  it  useful  to  talk  things  over  with  him  ;  politicians 
less  highly  placed,  whether  of  the  platform  or  of  the 
press,  readily  availed  themselves  of  invitations  to 
meet  him  at  the  private  houses  where  he  began  by 
being  on  view,  at  the  Mayfair  dinner-tables  of  Sir 
W.  O.  and  Lady  Priestley,  or  of  Lord  Arthur  Russell, 
and  at  the  Portland  Place  receptions  of  Sir  George  H. 
and  Lady  Lewis.  Schlesinger's  special  knowledge 
was  never  in  such  request  as  when,  towards  the  close 
of  the  seventies,  clubs,  drawing-rooms  and  street 
crowds  were  clamouring  for  war  with  Russia.  The 
indigenous  Chauvinism  with  which  French  statesman- 
ship has  always  had  to  reckon,  is  the  simple  growth 
of  a  national  and  militant  egotism.  The  British 
jingoism  that  drove  Lord  Derby  from  the  Foreign 
Office  in  1878,  by  accompanying  the  six-million  credit 

vote  with  the  moving  of  the  fleet  to  the  Dardanelles, 

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Official  and  Unofficial  Diplomatists 

was  a  composite  product.  Foremost  among  its  con- 
stituents was  a  revival  of  the  popular  feeling  for  our 
ally  and  protdge"  of  Crimean  memories,  the  gentle- 
manly Turk ;  in  smart  drawing-rooms  children  were 
taught  to  greet  their  mothers'  visitors  with  a  Moslem 
salaam  ;  little  boys  were  dressed  up  as  bashi-bazouks  ; 
their  small  sisters  were  disguised  in  the  flowing  drapery 
of  odalisques.  Under  Jewish  ascendancy  the  City  had 
become  as  anti-Russian  as  the  West  End.  Influences 
more  or  less  intellectual  were  at  work  in  the  same 
direction.  The  periodical  revival  of  the  old  Oxford 
High  Anglican  sentiment  for  reunion  with  the  Greek 
Church  prompted  the  loyal  subjects  of  the  Vatican  to 
range  themselves  with  the  Asiatic  enemies  of  the 
Greek  Patriarch.  Among  the  thinkers  and  agnostics 
were  Comtists  whose  humanitarian  sentiments  set 
them  against  the  Mussulman.  Others,  however,~were 
attracted  to  the  fashionable  side  from  an  idea  that 
Moslemism  might  act  as  a  counterpoise  to  a  too  pre- 
ponderating Christianity. 


383 


CHAPTER  XV 

NEW    VIEWS    AND    VENTURES 

British  diplomacy,  in  spite  of  personal  and  party  differences,  un- 
changed in  its  main  objects — Diversity  of  diplomatic  opinions 
regarding  Russia — The  San  Juan  Settlement — The  European 
Concert — English  and  Russian  influence  in  the  Near  East — 
The  Treaty  of  San  Stefano — The  Berlin  .Congress— England's 
secret  agreements  with  Russia  and  Turkey — The  London  and 
St  Petersburg  Foreign  Offices  compared — The  Danube  Con- 
ference, 1883 — The  Barrere  Project — Diplomacy  influenced  by 
the  City  and  the  Press — The  King  as  the  head  of  our  Diplo- 
matic System — Supposed  unpopularity  abroad  of  Liberal 
Diplomatists — Connection  between  the  Court  and  the  Foreign 
Office — The  Hague  Conference  of  1907 — Arms  superseded  by 
arbitration. 

THE  existing  Foreign  Office  had  been  built  before 
the  popular  phenomena  analysed  in  the  last 
chapter.  The  massive  structure  with  its  Parliament 
Street  frontage  and  St  James  Park  in  the  rear 
had,  as  already  described,  become  in  1868  the  head- 
quarters of  our  external  administration.  The  present 
narrative  will  reach  its  natural  end  in  a  retrospect 
of  the  chief  transactions  thus  far  to  be  associated 
with  this  edifice.  The  series  of  negotiations  now 
to  be  reviewed  began  in  1871  with  the  Black  Sea 
Conference,  originally  suggested  by  Bismarck,*  held 

*  Apart  from  a  standing  wish  to  embroil  England  and  Russia, 
the  German  chancellor  at  this  time  found  his  pleasure  in  presenting 
English  politicians  with  accumulated  proofs  of  Louis  Napoleon's  repeated 
overtures  to  Berlin  to  make  common  cause  with  Prussia  against  England. 
"  Here,"  he  would  say  to  the  fallen  emperor's  British  partisans,  "is  what 
your  French  ally  has  always  been  at." 

384 


New  Views  and  Ventures 

under  the  presidency  of  Lord  Granville  at  London  in 
the  March  of  1871  ;  this  it  was  found  convenient  to 
mention  on  an  earlier  page.  Here  it  is  proper  to  point 
out  that  the  first  great  act  of  English  diplomacy  after 
the  Franco- Prussian  War  was  one  of  fidelity  to  the 
Palmerstonian  traditions  emphasised  at  the  Paris 
Congress  of  1856.  In  fact,  however  much  the  leading 
agents  of  Gladstone's  diplomacy  may  have  disapproved 
the  obligations  incurred  by  England  at  this  period,  it 
was  never  a  part  of  their  policy  to  evade  them.  Here 
it  may  be  well  to  correct  a  popular  exaggeration  of  the 
mischievous  effects  exercised  by  party  politics  at  home 
upon  statesmanship  abroad.  As  was  seen  in  the  first 
chapter  of  this  work,  English  dynastic  changes,  and  the 
new  issues  raised  by  political  revolutions,  if  not  more  com- 
mon in  England  than  in  other  countries,  have  periodically 
influenced  the  terms  of  our  intercourse  with  Continental 
states.  Thus  the  bias  of  our  foreign  policy  under  an 
absolute  monarchy  was  at  one  period  French,  at  another 
Spanish,  at  another  Austrian.*  Amid  all  fluctuations, 
however,  the  maintenance  of  the  European  equilibrium 
to  the  advantage  of  English  interests  remained  the  con- 
sistent object  of  our  statesmanship.  English  factions  and 
their  leaders  have  often  been  labelled  with  international 
sympathies  widely  different.  Violent  solutions  of  con- 
tinuity as  a  result  of  those  differences  have  for  the 
most  part  been  rare.  The  rivalries  of  faction  have 
shown  themselves  over  methods  of  execution  rather 

*  The  notion  of  a  necessary  antagonism  between  the  foreign  policy 
of  England  and  France  was  a  tradition  from  The  Hundred  Years'  War. 
In  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  no  such  opposition  existed. 
On  the  contrary  the  conductors  of  French  and  English  policy  co-operated 
with  each  other  in  common  resistance  to  Spain.  Queen  Elizabeth  and 
Henry  IV.  worked  together.  Cromwell  acted  with  Mazarin.  The 
Stuarts,  Charles  II.  and  James  II.  truckled  to  Louis  XIV. 
2B  385 


The  Story    of  British   Diplomacy 

than  general  objects  of  policy.  The  first  Secretary 
of  State  for  Foreign  Affairs,  Fox,  in  comparison  with 
the  drastic  methods  of  his  department  when  animated 
by  Pitt's  inspiring  supervision,  may  have  seemed  re- 
miss in  forming  coalitions  against  France  and  in  sub- 
sidising the  armed  opponents  of  European  anarchy. 
But,  as  has  been  circumstantially  shown  in  these  pages, 
Great  Britain's  paramount  concern,  to  prevent  French 
preponderance  in  the  European  system,  was  not  main- 
tained more  strongly  by  Pitt  than  by  Fox ;  while  Pitt 
himself  lived  to  regret  and  for  the  future  to  renounce 
arrangements  by  which  England  was  compelled  to  pay, 
while  those  who  pocketed  her  money  did  just  as  much 
or  as  little  in  return  as  seemed  to  their  own  interest. 
At  each  successive  opportunity  of  negotiation  with  the 
victorious  captain  who  personified  the  revolutionary 
force,  both  the  British  statesmen  were  equally  ready  to 
receive  or  to  make  overtures.  So  with  their  successors. 
The  difference  between  Palmerston  on  the  one  hand 
and  Aberdeen  or  the  court  of  Queen  Victoria  and  the 
Prince  Consort  on  the  other  originated  in  and  was 
confined  to  details  of  personal  conduct  or  political  pro- 
cedure. Aberdeen's  wish  to  promote  an  Anglo-French 
entente  was,  whenever  he  had  the  chance,  Palmerston's 
idea  also.  During  the  first  part  of  the  Victorian  age 
Palmerston's  Whig  sympathy  with  France  as  the  land 
of  Liberalism  did  not  prevent  his  making  ready  to  fight 
her  rather  than  compromise  British  interests  by  per- 
mitting French  ascendancy  in  Syria  and  Egypt. 
Aberdeen's  high  Tory  antecedents  formed  a  strong 
contrast  to  Palmerston's  early  Whig  associations.  As 
regards  Mehemet  Ali,  in  1830,  Aberdeen  began  by 
telling  his  fellow  Oppositionists  that  Palmerston  would 

386 


New  Views  and  Ventures 

give  a  good  account  of  himself ;  he  ended  by  approving 
in  detail  everything  that  Palmerston  had  done. 

In  the  case  of  the  Eastern  question  and  the  rela- 
tions into  which  it  has  brought  England  both  with 
Russia  and  Turkey,  personal  accidents  have  sometimes 
made  it  more  difficult  for  successive  administrations  to 
maintain  an  unbroken  line  of  statesmanship.  Even 
here  the  differences  long  made  themselves  felt  more  at 
the  formation  of  a  Cabinet,  e.g.,  between  1846  and 
1856,  than  in  the  actual  work  of  foreign  administration 
afterwards.  The  conventional  anti- Russian  feeling  first 
showed  itself  at  the  English  court  under  George  I.,  at 
the  time  of  the  Northern  Alliance  against  England,  ren- 
dered abortive,  as  has  been  seen,  by  the  death  of  Charles 
X 1 1 .  of  Sweden.  The  next  attack  of  Russophobia,  in  the 
reign  of  George  III.,  in  connection  with  Oczakow,  was 
aggravated  by  the  personal  jealousy  between  the  younger 
Pitt  and  Charles  Fox.*  Chatham,  indeed,  we  have  heard 
during  the  Seven  Years'  War  describes  himself  as  getting 
more  and  more  of  a  Russ  every  day.  Throughout  the 
European  convulsions,  beginning  in  1814,  we  acted  with 
Russia ;  at  Vienna,  as  elsewhere,  the  Duke  of  Wellington 
greatly  preferred  Russia  to  any  other  Power.  Welling- 
ton's good  opinion  may  be  naturally  explained  by  the 
comparative  moderation  of  the  Emperor  Alexander  in 
the  matter  of  the  terms  to  be  imposed  upon  France 
after  Leipzig  and  Waterloo.  Whether  this  moderation 
was  really  so  signal  as  Wellington,  not  merely  at  the 

*  Before  this  a  most  important  English  embassage  to  the  Russian 
Empress  Elizabeth  had  been  that  of  Macartney,  who  was  also  the  first 
British  Ambassador  ever  sent  to  China  (1772).  In  1764  the  renewal  of 
the  Anglo-Russian  treaty  that  had  expired  in  1734  was  essential  to 
English  diplomacy.  Macartney's  tact  alone  finally  overcame  Elizabeth's 
repeated  refusals. 

387 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

time  but  afterwards,  thought,  may  be  doubtful ;  Russia 
in  fact  could  afford  to  seem  disinterested  because  she 
risked  nothing ;  helped  by  Wellington's  good  opinion, 
she  was  making  a  cheap  investment  in  moral  reputa- 
tion that  was  subsequently  to  pay  her  well  with  her 
British  partisans.  Even  Wellington  found  reason  to 
modify  his  first  favourable  estimate  Curing  the  negotia- 
tions for  Hellenic  autonomy  between  the  St  Petersburg 
protocol  and  the  Treaty  of  London.  By  the  time  of 
the  Bourbon  restoration  a  second  French  expedition 
to  Moscow  had  become  inconceivable ;  Russia,  too, 
was  so  remote  from  France  as  to  be  free  from  all 
anxiety  about  French  action  after  Napoleon's  fall. 
To  trace  the  whole  course  of  Anglo- Russian  relations, 
even  with  the  minimum  of  detail  necessary  to  make 
them  intelligible,  would  be  beyond  the  scope  of  this 
work.  Those  Anglo- Russian  developments  of  our 
own  day  that  need  be  mentioned  here  have  marked 
different  stages  in  the  story  of  the  new  Foreign  Office 
building.  Sir  Edward  Grey's  second  year  in  the 
control  of  this  department  was  signalised  by  the  agree- 
ment between  London  and  St  Petersburg  which  met 
with  no  warmer  approval  than  from  Lord  Lansdowne, 
the  Conservative  predecessor  of  its  English  author.* 
As  a  fact  the  new  entente  changes  nothing,  but  it 
helps  to  keep  Europe  quiet,  is  something  for  the 
public  and  the  press  to  discuss,  and  may  conduce  to 
a  feeling  of  English  sympathy  on  the  "prolonged 
period  of  anarchy  "  to  which  the  Giant  of  the  North 
has  "  fallen  a  prey." 

*  The  tempers  of  Lord  Palmerston  and  Sir  Edward  Grey  have  little 
in  common.  The  present  Foreign  Secretary's  proposal  (1908)  to  settle 
Macedonia  by  appointing  a  trustworthy  Turk  as  Governor,  is  quite  in  the 
Palmerstonian  spirit. 

388 


New  Views  and  Ventures 

Such,  in  the  spring  of  1908,  has  been  Russia's  last 
appearance  at  the  new  Foreign  Office.  Its  first  was  the 
already  described  Black  Sea  Conference  of  1871.  In 
1872  the  department  disposed  of  another  question,  that 
of  San  Juan ;  with  that  Russia's  connection  was  only 
incidental  and  secondary.  Whether  England  or  the 
United  States  was-  entitled  to  the  island  of  San  Juan 
ought  to  have  been  settled,  but  was  ignored  by  the  Ore- 
gon Treaty  of  1 846.  The  earliest  associations  of  the  new 
Foreign  Office  were  again  destined  to  be  inauspicious. 
The  German  emperor,  to  whom  the  matter  was  referred, 
immediately  gave  it  as  strongly  in  favour  of  the  Ameri- 
cans as  had  been  done  by  the  Geneva  arbitrators  in  the 
affair  of  the  Alabama.  The  group  of  subjects  chiefly 
connecting  themselves  with  the  new  building  during 
the  Secretaryships  of  Granville,  Derby  and  Salisbury, 
concerned  this  country  and  Russia.  Here,  as  had 
been  done  before,  and  was  done  afterwards,  Liberal 
and  Conservative  ministers  showed  the  same  anxiety 
to  guard  against  any  breach  in  the  policy  of  their 
department.  The  object  common  to  each  of  them  was 
not  so  much  to  suppress  Russia,  as  to  insist  upon  the 
observance  in  her  Imperial  progress  of  her  treaty 
obligations  as  a  member  of  the  European  comity. 
The  degree  of  success  with  which  British  diplomacy 
did  this  may  have  varied.  The  duty  itself  was  im- 
partially recognised  as  a  principle  of  English  diplo- 
macy, by  Aberdeen  as  by  Palmerston,  by  Gladstone, 
Disraeli,  Granville  and  Salisbury.  In  1856,  the  four- 
teenth Lord  Derby's  Austrian  sympathies,  rather  than 
any  differences  about  relations  with  the  Czar  or  the 
Porte,  prevented  Gladstone's  return  to  a  Conservative 
Cabinet.  On  the  whole,  too,  the  consistent  pressure 

389 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

of  our  Foreign  Office  under  successive  chiefs  has  had 
the  effect  of  bringing  Russia  into  line  with  the  other 
Powers.  The  familiar  phrase  of  our  nineteenth  and 
twentieth-century  diplomacy,  "the  European  Concert," 
can  be  shown  not  always  to  have  deserved  the  hard 
things  said  about  it.  Thus,  in  1871,  the  earliest  among 
the  collective  acts  of  Europe  in  council,  performed  at 
the  London  Foreign  Office,  may  have  sacrificed  some 
of  the  objects  secured  at  the  Paris  Congress  of  1856. 
It  maintained  the  doctrine  of  Russian  submission  to  the 
approval  of  united  Europe  as  recognised  by  her  fifteen 
years  earlier.  The  Prusso- Russian  understanding  made, 
it  may  be  said,  the  Black  Sea  Conference  a  farce.  If  so, 
it  was  essential  to  the  success  of  the  play  itself.  Again 
and  again  has  it  been  shown  in  these  pages  that,  without 
previous  private  agreement  between  some  of  the  chief 
delegates,  a  conference  does  nothing.  The  periodical 
and  almost  continuous  severity  of  the  strain  placed  by 
the  politics  of  the  Near  East  upon  the  Concert  coincided 
in  its  beginnings  with  the  renewed  vigilance  of  White- 
hall in  watching  Russian  movements  on  the  frontiers  of 
British  India.  The  Foreign  Secretary  of  1876,  Lord 
Derby,  after  the  reopening  of  the  Eastern  question  in 
that  year,  took  the  initiative  in  intervening  not  to  pre- 
vent but  to  discourage  Servia  from  going  to  war  with 
Turkey.  At  the  same  time  he  categorically  communi- 
cated to  both  the  Czar  and  the  Sultan  the  general  con- 
ditions which  at  a  conference  Europe  would  stultify 
itself  were  it  not  to  apply  to  both.  That  application 
fulfilled  itself  afterwards  in  the  substitution  by  two 
Conservative  ministers  of  the  Treaty  of  Berlin  for  that 
of  San  Stefano.  The  terms  consented  to  by  Turkey 
and  Russia  at  Berlin  ,were  indexed  privately  settled 

390 


New  Views  and   Ventures 

before  the  congress  met,  by  the  contracting  diplo- 
matists. That,  as  has  been  seen,  was  only  in  accord- 
ance with  the  orthodox  tradition.  To  the  Gladstonian 
Foreign  Secretary  of  1880  fell  the  task  of  insuring  the 
execution  of  the  Berlin  conditions  that  affected  Monte- 
negro. The  Derby  policy  of  the  earlier  epoch  had 
been,  from  one  point  of  view,  defined  by  the  Prime 
Minister,  as  not  dependent  on  the  will  of  England's 
neighbours.  "  Russian  aggression  and  menace,"  said 
Disraeli,  just  before  he  left  the  Lower  House  in  1876, 
''are  to  be  resisted,  not  in  the  interests  of  Turkey,  for 
whom  we  are  not  responsible,  but  for  the  purpose  of 
maintaining  the  Empire  of  England."  As  from  Pitt 
and  Canning  to  Aberdeen  and  Palmerston  so  under 
Disraeli  the  main  object  of  our  Foreign  Office  was  to 
secure  the  inviolability  of  the  route  to  India.  British 
diplomacy  could  not  prevent  the  Russian  support  of 
Servia ;  it  did,  however,  effectually  neutralise  the 
Russian  suggestion  to  Austria  of  a  joint  occupation  of 
Turkey  and  the  advance  of  the  fleets  into  the  Bos- 
phorus.  The  Constantinople  Conference  of  1877  failed  ; 
the  Russian  representative,  General  Ignatieff,  closed  the 
door  on  its  sittings  with  a  threat.  British  statesmanship 
persevered  in  preserving  the  Concert ;  it  secured  Gort- 
schakoffs  signature  in  London  (3ist  March  1877)  of  a 
protocol  pledging  the  Powers  to  reforms  in  European 
Turkey.  The  diplomatic  blunder  vitiating  the  London 
protocol  of  1877  was  the  failure  to  include  in  it  the  Porte 
itself  as  one  of  the  signatories  to  the  1856  treaty.  In 
1878  came  the  war  which  left  victorious  Russia  as  it 
seemed  with  Constantinople  at  her  feet.  The  first  objec- 
tion to  the  Treaty  of  San  Stefano  proceeded  before  the 
Berlin  Congress  from  Derby*  As  an  attempt,  he  said, 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

to  settle  the  Eastern  question  without  the  consent  of 
Europe,  this  instrument  could  not  be  accepted. 

The  Salisbury  Circular,  which  followed  Derby's 
resignation,  restated  with  a  literary  skill  and  political 
vehemence  that  were  all  its  own,  the  objections  already 
taken  by  the  out-going  minister.  The  fundamental 
difference  between  the  London  and  St  Petersburg- 
Foreign  Offices,  revealed  by  the  Salisbury  Circular, 
must,  it  was  said  by  the  unsophisticated  observers, 
render  it  impossible  for  any  arrangement  to  be  reached 
by  the  assemblage  of  diplomatists  at  the  Russian 
capital.  The  experts  knew  better.  Everything  had, 
in  fact,  been  arranged  between  England,  with  the  Czar 
on  the  one  hand  and  the  Sultan  on  the  other,  before  the 
plenipotentiaries  went  to  Berlin.  Correcting  Mr  W. 
S.  Blunt's  narrative  in  his  recent  work  on  Egypt,  Mr 
H.  W.  Lucy,  in  the  Westminster  Gazette,  during 
August  1907,  accurately  recalled  the  true  facts.  The 
congress,  which  replaced  the  Treaty  of  San  Stefano  with 
the  Treaty  of  Berlin,  met  on  i3th  June  1878.  During 
the  previous  May  outstanding  differences  between 
London  and  St  Petersburg  had  been  removed  by  the 
Anglo- Russian  Convention  specifying  the  terms  on 
which  the  two  nations  would  amicably  co-operate  at 
Berlin.  The  transfer  of  Cyprus  to  England  was 
arranged  in  a  later  and  an  entirely  different  document. 
This  was  the  Anglo-Turkish  Convention,  signed  4th 
June  1878,  not  communicated  to  Parliament  till  8th 
July.  It  was  the  Anglo- Russian  Convention  which  a 
casual  Foreign  Office  hand  sold  to  the  Globe  news- 
paper, and  which  Lord  Salisbury  contradicted.  The 
agreement  with  the  Porte  was  indeed  the  subject  of  a 
similar  ddmenti,  but  that,  of  course,  came  later.  In 

392 


New  Views  and  Ventures 

thus  removing  all  dangers  to  an  impending  negotia- 
tion, the  English  Foreign  Secretary  of  the  day  was 
acting  not  only  according  to  the  illustrious  British 
precedent  of  ages,  but  in  strict  consistency  with  what, 
at  that  very  moment,  was  being  done  by  all  the 
European  Powers  concerned.  Lord  Beaconsfield  had 
not  studied  Henry  St  John,  Viscount  Bolingbroke,  for 
nothing.  The  clandestine  compact  with  the  Czar 
exactly  reproduced  the  secret  understanding  with 
France,  signed  and  sealed  by  Bolingbroke,  before  the 
Utrecht  conferences.  Meanwhile,  in  1878,  our  diplo- 
macy only  followed  the  Continental  suite.  If  Lord 
Salisbury  was  called  to  account  for  his  behind-the- 
scenes  deal  with  Russia,  the  Italian  prime  minister, 
Count  Corti,  had  in  exactly  the  same  way  to  defend 
himself  for  having  sold  Italian  interest  in  Tunis  to 
France.  The  Franco- Italian-Tunisian  incident  illus- 
trates, it  may  be  said  in  passing,  the  continuity  under 
different  parties  of  our  external  relations.  Lord  Salis- 
bury himself  rather  reluctantly  stomached  the  arrange- 
ment. The  French  and  English  official  accounts  since 
published  show  it  to  have  been  even  less  acceptable  to 
Salisbury's  successors.  Gladstone  and  Granville,  how- 
ever, while  deploring  and  even  condemning  it,  made 
no  attempt  to  reverse  the  policy.  Of  the  other  mutual 
obligations  by  which,  before  going  to  Berlin,  the 
Powers  bound  themselves  hand  and  foot,  the  most 
famous  secured  for  Austria,  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina,  as 
a  counterpoise  to  Panslavism.  With  regard  to  our  own 
acquisition  of  the  isle  of  Venus,  entirely  untrustworthy 
as  their  lordships  were  assured  such  a  rumour  to  be, 
it  was  a  stroke  of  commercial  far  more  than  military 
diplomacy.  The  first  which  many  people  knew  of 

393 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

the  business,  was  the  announcement  of  Truefit,  the 
Bond  Street  hairdresser,  that  he  had  opened  a  branch 
establishment  at  Nicosia  and  the  playing  of  cricket 
matches  at  Larnaca  or  Limassol.  The  British  pleni- 
potentiaries on  their  return  from  Berlin  were  welcomed 
at  the  Guildhall.  The  harmony  of  the  proceedings 
was  marred  for  a  moment  by  a  morbidly  scrupulous 
spectator  shouting — ''Traitors  to  the  Constitution!" 
But  the  crowd  generally  recognised  that  no  violence 
had  been  done  to  any  diplomatic  usage.  It  was  less 
a  question  of  high  treason  than  of  high  comedy.  No 
section  of  English  opinion  was  in  the  slightest  degree 
scandalised.  The  public  feeling  had  been  truly  re- 
flected in  Tenniel's  Punch  cartoon — Disraeli  as  St 
George  drinking  a  pot  of  porter,  with  the  Dragon 
Russia  behind  the  scenes.  I  have  already  had  occa- 
sion to  mention  the  great  acquirements  of  Lord  Henry 
Lennox.  His  brother,  the  Duke  of  Richmond,  the 
most  absolutely  frank  and  honest  of  men,  at  once 
saved  his  conscience  and  helped  his  friends  by  describ- 
ing the  prematurely  disclosed  agreements,  not  after  the 
ministerial  fashion,  as  false,  but  inaccurate  because 
incomplete.  Had  the  national  honour  been  indeed 
betrayed  or  foully  besmirched  by  the  English  authors 
of  these  compacts,  their  successors  might  have  yielded 
to  domestic  and  perhaps  foreign  pressure  so  far  as  to 
remodel  them.  By  not  proposing  to  do  anything  of 
the  sort,  Gladstone  and  Granville  gave  another  proof 
that  party  changes  operate  less  unfavourably  to  our 
international  consistency  than  is  sometimes  supposed. 
The  charge,  indeed,  to  which  our  diplomacy  seems 
chiefly  open  is  not  lack  of  unity  consequent  on  the 
vicissitudes  of  our  political  system,  but  a  habit  of 

394 


New  Views  and  Ventures 

living  from  hand  to  mouth.  Questions  are  dealt  with 
singly  as  they  arise,  from  day  to  day,  with  too  little 
of  systematic  foresight.  In  Russia,  on  the  contrary,  the 
traditional  will  of  Peter  the  Great,  with  its  often  quoted 
political  injunctions,  may  be  no  more  authentic  than 
the  forged  decretals  of  the  Western  Church.  Russia, 
indeed,  knows  little  of  those  changes  of  government 
which,  in  constitutional  states,  are  regarded  as  incon- 
sistent with  unity  of  diplomatic  purpose.  She  suffers, 
however,  periodically  from  other  internal  convulsions 
scarcely  less  disquieting,  while  she  is  ever  confronted 
by  perplexing  ethnic  problems  unknown  in  Western 
Europe.  The  Czar  may  at  times  seem  the  creature  of 
his  bureaucracy  ;  but  the  indefinitely  far-reaching  will  of 
an  autocrat,  who  is  the  embodiment  of  great  traditions, 
secures  consistency  and  immutability  in  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  St  Petersburg  Foreign  Office. 

Our  Egyptian  connection  requires  rather  a  volume 
than  a  paragraph,  and  could  not  be  treated  here  with- 
out retreading  ground  already  instructively  occupied 
by  many  recent  writers.  It  is  now  just  a  quarter  of 
a  century  since  England  became  paramount  in  the 
valley  of  the  Nile.  During  that  time  there  have  been 
ten  changes  in  the  control  of  our  Foreign  Office.  In 
1908,  our  position,  work  and  purposes  in  the  land  of 
the  Pharaohs  are  what  they  were  on  the  morrow  after 
Arabi's  rising  in  1882.  Cabinets  have  been  made  and 
unmade,  entirely  new  domestic  forces  have  made 
themselves  felt  in  our  affairs.  The  details  of  our 
earliest  intervention  in  the  country  attested  the  wish 
at  once  to  respect  Turkish  integrity  and  the  European 
concert.  In  1882,  Granville  pressed  on  Gambetta 
Arabi's  suppression  by  the  Sultan  as  the  Khedive's 

395 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

sovereign  lord.*  This  was  in  the  Palmerstonian  line. 
Tunisian  affairs  had,  however,  strained  French  rela- 
tions with  the  Porte.  It  was  thus  the  French  objec- 
tion practically  to  recognise  the  Sultan's  prerogative 
that  compelled  England  to  waive  a  diplomatic  point, 
and  herself  do  the  tranquillising  work.  In  the  hands 
of  successive  ministers  of  varying  calibre  and  of  person- 
ally different  ideas,  the  Concert  has  proved  a  diplomatic 
instrument  of  appreciable  efficacy.  Its  failures  have 
been  caused  not  only  by  contradictory  councils  in 
Whitehall,  but  by  the  disturbing  and  paralysing 
influences  of  popular  passion.  Like  other  delicate 
agencies,  it  requires  skill  in  using  as  well  as  con- 
genial conditions  for  its  success.  Thus,  in  1897,  tne 
point  of  impatience  to  which  the  Greek  mind  had 
been  worked  up  by  the  newspaper  writers  and  agita- 
tion-mongers of  Athens,  Paris  and  London,  forced 
the  pace,  kindled  the  Greco-Turkish  War,  and  so 
prevented  the  bloodless  cession  then  in  course  of 
arrangement  by  co-operation  between  the  chanceries 
of  London,  Paris  and  St  Petersburg.  The  same 
pressure  from  without  and  not  any  diplomatic  hitch 
frustrated  Lord  Kimberley's  endeavours  to  unite  the 
Powers  in  protecting  the  Porte's  Christian  subjects. 
The  test  to  which  the  Salisbury  diplomacy  seemed 
least  equal  was  that  applied  in  Europe  rather  than  in 
Asia.  It  came  in  1892,  and  consisted  of  the  Heligo- 

*  In  1881,  the  then  unprecedentedly  democratic  Gladstonian  Govern- 
ment, with  Granville  at  the  Foreign  Office,  was  about  to  coerce  Turkey 
by  a  naval  demonstration  into  the  cession  of  Montenegro.  In  the 
September  of  1881,  Lord  Salisbury  prophesied  just  as  much  success  for 
the  expedient  as  if  six  washing-tubs  with  the  flags  of  the  different  nations 
had  been  sent  to  the  Adriatic.  On  the  26th  of  the  next  November, 
Dervish  Pasha  evacuated  Dulcigno,  into  which  he  had  fought  his  way, 
and  the  demonstration  had  done  its  work. 

396 


New  Views  and  Ventures 

land  cession  to  Germany ;  that  coincided  with  the 
great  advantages  also  gained  by  the  same  Power 
in  East  Africa  and  Zanzibar.  The  Anglo-American 
Venezuela  dispute  of  1896,  presently  to  be  mentioned, 
was  preceded  in  1892  by  the  recurrence  of  friction  with 
the  United  States  concerning  the  seal-fishery  in  the 
Behring  Straits.  In  this  matter  Lord  Salisbury's  third 
Foreign  Secretaryship  defeated  the  claim  of  Russia,  and 
disposed  by  arbitration  that  of  the  United  States. 

Meanwhile,  during  Lord  Granville's  third  Secretary- 
ship, the  Foreign  Office  had,  in  1883,  received  the 
European  plenipotentiaries  for  a  purpose  which  re- 
minded the  world  that  a  limited  adhesion  to  the 
principles  of  non-intervention  was  consistent  with  as 
real  a  concern  as  formerly  in  whatever  makes  for 
prosperity,  peace  and  equilibrium  throughout  Europe. 
Such  an  occasion  came  in  the  Danube  Conference  of 
1883.  So  far  as  possible,  I  have  tried  in  this  work  to 
avoid  restating  familiar  details  except  when  their 
mention  has  been  necessary  to  make  the  context 
intelligible,  and  have  dwelt  for  choice  upon  the  new 
material  I  have  been  fortunate  enough  to  collect.  In 
his  biography  of  Lord  Granville,  Lord  Fitzmaurice, 
to  whom  I  am  under  so  many  obligations  in  preparing 
the  present  work,  had  no  occasion  to  go  at  any  length 
into  the  European  meeting  presided  over  by  Gran- 
ville in  1883  concerning  Danubian  affairs.  I  may 
therefore  supply  the  omitted  particulars  from  in- 
formation not  as  yet  printed.*  The  Paris  treaty  of 
1856  ending  the  Crimean  War,  provided  for  the 
nationalisation  of  the  stream,  which,  after  a  course 

*  Supplied  me  by  the  good  offices  of  the  French  Commissioner,  now 
French  ambassador  at  Rome. 

397 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

of  1740  miles,  mingles  its  waters  with  the  Black  Sea. 
Called  into  existence  to  promote  the  Riverain  clauses, 
the  Danube  Commission  contained  representatives  of 
Powers  whose  names  the  Treaty  of  Paris  bore.     Sub- 
sequently a  Roumanian  member  was  added.    Thus  com- 
posed, the  Commission  from  the  first  had,  and  still  pos- 
sesses, sovereign  rights  over  the  waterway.     The  Berlin 
Conference  of  1878  laid  before  the  commissioners  a  plan 
for  extending  the  navigation  works  up  to  the  point  of  the 
Iron  Gates.    A  further  suggestion  of  new  regulations  for 
that  portion  of  the  river  gave  rise  to  a  long  and  delicate 
discussion,  chiefly  centring  round  the  Austrian  claims  to 
exclusive  supervision.     The  refusal  of  those  demands 
must,  said  the  Vienna  diplomatists,  involve  Austria's 
withdrawal  from  the  Commission.  That  must  have  meant 
the  dissolution  of  this  highly  useful  body.     Politically, 
as  well  as  commercially,  the  consequence  would  have 
been  a  serious   loss   to  every  European   state.     The 
commissioner  whose  tact  averted  this  misfortune  was 
not  indeed   an  Englishman ;   he   possessed,  however, 
and   still   possesses,    a    more    perfect    and    practical 
command  of  our  language  than  has  perhaps  belonged 
to  any  other  foreign  politician  of  his  day  ;  M.  Camille 
Barrere,  now,  as  mentioned  above,  representing   the 
French    Republic    at    the    Quirinal,    shares    with   his 
contemporaries,  MM.  Pallain  and  Joseph  Reinach,  the 
distinction   of  having   belonged   to  Gambetta's    most 
intimate  circle ;  by  that  shrewd  reader  of  character  he 
was  chosen  as  French  delegate  at  the  London  Danube 
Conference.     To   him,  supported    by   the   president's 
approval,*    was    due     the     compromise    which     now 

*  It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose,  as  I  have  seen  said,  that  M.  Barrere's  chief 
English  supporter  was  Sir  Charles  Rivers  Wilson.     On  the  contrary  he 

398 


New   Views  and  Ventures 

averted   collapse.     The  Barrere  project,  as   in    inter- 
national law  it  is  still  called,  having   been   approved 
by   the   delegates   assembled   under  Lord  Granville's 
presidency   at    Whitehall,   supplied   the    basis   of  the 
Danube  Treaty    of   London    in    1883.     The   essence 
of  the  Barrere  arrangement  was  a  sub-commission  for 
the  Upper  Danube.     The  new  body,  formed  exclusively 
by  the  Riverain  states,  was  to  be  under  the  presidency  of 
Austria,  subject  to  specified  conditions  of  international 
control.     At   the   same    time    the   chief  Commission, 
instead   of  being  provisional  and  temporary,  was    to 
become     permanent.     The      result     has     abundantly 
justified  the  line  taken  by  the  English    minister  and 
his    assistant    experts     towards    the    new    proposals 
ratified   during    the    second    decade   of    our    Foreign 
Office's  occupation  of  its  present  building.     Thirteen 
years  later  (1896)  was  performed  the  sub-commission's 
special  task  in  making  the  river  between  Braila  and 
the  Iron  Gates  navigable    by  ships  of  large   calibre. 
Austria  has  co-operated  loyally  with   its   neighbours. 
There  is  a  great  and  growing  increase  of  European, 
and  especially  English,  trade  on    the    river.     Among 
the  less  known  monuments  of  Granville's  third  Foreign 
Office  term  is  none  more  significant  in  itself  or  appro- 
priate to  these  pages  than  the  Franco- English  policy  of 
consolidating  the  two  separate  Danube  Commissions. 
The  permanence  thus  amicably  secured  to  the  principle 
of  international  supervision  may  be  described  to-day 
as  embodying  the  one  portion    still  surviving  of  the 
Paris  treaty  of  1856. 

at  the  time  was,  together  with  Sir  Julian  Pauncefote,  engaged  on  the 
Suez  Canal  International  Commission,  over  which  M.  Barrere  presided. 
With  the  Danube  Commission,  I  am  assured  by  Sir  Charles  Rivers 
Wilson  himself,  he  never  had  anything  to  do. 

399 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

Canning  indeed  exercised  a  moderating  influence 
in  the  opposite  direction.  But  up  to  the  date  of  the 
Treaty  of  Paris,  British  statesmanship,  Whig  or 
Tory,  Liberal  or  Conservative,  had  on  the  whole 
inclined  towards  the  practical  belief  that  it  was  the 
business  of  our  diplomacy  to  interfere  in  the  affairs  of 
other  countries.  In  the  case  of  foreign  states, 
agitated  by  domestic  -troubles  or  threatened  by  ex- 
ternal attacks,  without  any  solicitation  and  upon  the 
slightest  pretext,  Palmerston  could  not  easily  be  kept 
from  proffering  advice,  to  be  supplemented  if  there 
seemed  any  excuse  for  it,  with  something  in  the  nature 
of  material  assistance  to  the  side  which  had  his  good 
wishes.  In  his  eagerness  to  score  "  off  his  own  bat,"  he 
consistently  ignored  the  greatest  European  growth  of 
his  time,  the  principle  of  nationality.  His  chief  differ- 
ence with  the  Prince  Consort  arose  from  the  persistent 
contempt  of  Prussia.  Here  he  was  backed  by  The 
Times.  Yet  Prussia  was  not  only  to  unite  all  Germany, 
but  to  affect  every  calculation  and  enterprise  of  our 
Foreign  Office.  Not  so  the  sober  and  more  far-seeing 
among  his  contemporaries.  When  Cobden  and 
Mallet  returned  to  England  from  their  Paris  journey  in 
1859,  they  found  means  of  conveying  even  to  White- 
hall their  presentiment  of  approaching  Continental 
transformation  scenes  and  their  significance  to  our 
statesmanship  beyond  seas.  These  warnings  and 
their  lessons  cut  deep  into  the  minds  of  the  masses. 
English  diplomacy  indeed  had  first  shown  itself 
accessible  to  the  new  notions  when,  in  1851,  Granville, 
on  succeeding  Palmerston  at  the  Foreign  Office,  as 
already  related,  gave  a  diplomatic  status  to  the  word 

"  non-intervention." 

400 


New  Views  and  Ventures 

The  Newfoundland  fishery  regulations  and  the 
commercial  or  industrial  resources  and  temptations  of 
South  Africa  have  given  rise  to  questions  whose 
handling  has  taxed  the  skill  of  two  recent  heads  of  the 
Foreign  Office  respectively,  Lord  Rosebery  and  Lord 
Salisbury.  But  for  the  miners  and  capitalists  of  the 
rand  and  the  "new  diplomacy"  associated  with  them, 
some  have  doubted  whether  the  twentieth  century 
would  have  opened  with  the  Transvaal  operations. 
The  City,  however,  may  be  less  of  an  embarrassment 
to  Whitehall  than  Fleet  Street  and  Paternoster  Row. 
"  The  courts  and  foreign  offices  of  the  world,  would  work 
together  in  peace  and  harmony  but  for  the  embitter- 
ing influences  of  a  press  that  is  dominated  by  business 
bosses."  So,  in  the  last  year  of  his  life,  said  a  recently 
departed  diplomatist  who  before  making  that  remark  had 
combined  several  branches  of  journalism  with  politics, 
who  knew  therefore  thoroughly  what  he  was  talking  about, 
and  who  was  constitutionally  incapable  of  prejudice. 

"In  fifty  years  there  will  not  be  a  legitimate 
sovereign  in  Europe  ;  from  Russia  to  Sicily  I  foresee 
nothing  but  military  despotisms."  This  remark  was 
made  about  the  year  1815  by  the  French  diplo- 
matist Chateaubriand  to  the  American  Ticknor.  Yet 
Chateaubriand  himself  before  he  became  French 
ambassador  in  London  (1822-4)  had  seen  George  III. 
venerated  as  a  symbol  of  Anglo-Saxon  unity  on  both 
sides  of  the  Atlantic.  Rather  less  than  a  century  after 
that  king's  death,  his  great-grandson  and  successor 
more  than  impersonates  the  attributes  and  functions 
of  which  his  ancestor  was  a  type.  To  the  entire  satis- 
faction of  his  subjects  King  Edward  has  informally 
become  the  head  of  our  diplomatic  system, 

2C  4OI 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

In  1896  the  Venezuela  incident  formed  one  of 
the  subjects  with  which  Lord  Salisbury  had  to  deal. 
It  belonged  to  a  class  of  questions  periodically 
agitating  between  Whitehall  and  Washington.  The 
Venezuela  and  British  Guiana  frontier  became  debat- 
able immediately  after  the  cession  of  Guiana  to 
England  by  the  1814  treaty  with  Holland.  In  and 
subsequently  to  1836,  the  controversy  was  complicated 
by  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  which,  as  has  already  inci- 
dentally been  seen,  was  largely  due  to  Canning's 
suggestion  to  the  United  States  president.  The 
experiences  of  1896  confirmed  Lord  Salisbury's  con- 
viction that  we  could  never  fight  the  United  States. 
Moreover,  there  is  to-day  a  pretty  general  assumption 
that  since  the  conclusion  of  those  international  arrange- 
ments from  which  by  name  Germany  had  been  omitted, 
England  has  become  involved  in  a  half  promise  to 
back  France  against  the  consequences,  and  this  half 
promise  would,  in  case  of  need,  be  kept  as  though 
it  were  a  real  one.  Here  the  attitude  of  the  Foreign 
Office  under  a  Liberal  Secretary  of  State  is  the 
same  as  under  a  Conservative.  Sir  Edward  Grey 
himself  spoke  of  crowning  the  policy  of  Lord 
Lansdowne  by  an  understanding  with  Russia  and  with 
Spain.  The  patriots  of  Persia  may  complain  of  their 
country  being  divided  into  English  and  Russian 
spheres  of  influence,  as  well  as  of  their  efforts  after 
constitutional  rule  being  discouraged  by  statesmen 
who  themselves  belong  to  the  "  Mother  of  Parliaments." 
The  Egyptian  reformers  used  the  same  sort  of 
language  five-and-forty  years  ago.  Then,  as  now, 
foreign  censures  were  impartially  distributed  between 

both  our  political  parties  and  their  leaders.     Periodi- 

402 


New  Views  and  Ventures 

cally  the  accession  of  a  Liberal  ministry  is  accompanied 
by  rumours  of  the  universal  distrust  with  which 
Liberal  diplomacy  inspires  Continental  chanceries. 
That  of  course  can  never  be  otherwise  than  a  fiction. 
To-day  it  is  in  exceptionally  glaring  contradiction  to 
the  known  facts.  "  Votre  roi"  remarked  the  other  day 
a  foreign  diplomatist  of  the  highest  rank,  "  a  la  mattrise 
de  £  Europe"  In  the  eighth  year  of  the  present  reign 
the  foreign  public  and  even  foreign  diplomatists  see 
the  one  responsible  author  of  British  policy  in  the 
king,  who  does,  they  think,  make  an  excellent  Minister 
for  Foreign  Affairs.  In  passing,  it  may  be  observed 
that  the  alleged  unpopularity  of  Liberal  diplomatists 
associates  itself  with  a  small  diplomatic  incident  which 
happened  in  London  about  the  beginning  of  Lord 
Granville's  third  Secretaryship.  The  incoming  Prime 
Minister,  Gladstone,  had  said  one  could  put  the  finger 
on  no  point  on  the  map  at  which  Austria's  influence 
was  not  exerted  for  evil.  Journalistic  and  personal 
agencies  sedulously  aggravated  the  offence  taken  at 
these  words  by  the  Austrian  Embassy  in  London  and 
by  the  Imperial  court  at  Vienna.  Lord  Granville  had 
no  difficulty  in  showing  Gladstone's  words  about 
Austria  to  be  mild  in  comparison  with  Salisbury's 
attacks  on  Russia.  Through  Granville's  mediation 
the  affair  ended  by  the  British  premier  disclaiming 
any  idea  of  personal  reflection  upon  the  house  of 
Hapsburg. 

The  close  and  practical  connection  between  our 
Foreign  Office  and  our  court  has  been  mentioned.  The 
novelty  consists  not  in  the  fact,  but  in  the  cordiality  of 
its  recognition  and  in  the  universal  satisfaction  caused 
by  the  results  attributed  to  it.  William  III.  was  indeed 

2C*  403 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

the  last  sovereign  personally  to  superintend  foreign 
affairs  as  a  department  of  the  palace.  All  the  suc- 
cessors of  his  own  sex  claimed  and  generally  exercised 
over  external  relations  a  control  different  from  that 
which  satisfied  them  in  home  affairs.  Despatches  from 
abroad  were  forwarded  to  the  palace  immediately  on 
their  reaching  England.  Communications  with  foreign 
courts  were  submitted  to  the  Crown  before  the  Secretary 
of  State  signed  them ;  they  were  often  added  to  and 
altered  by  the  monarch.  Enough  has  been  already 
said  about  the  relations  between  Queen  Victoria  and  the 
Foreign  Office.  The  royal  supervision  necessarily  in- 
cluded in  some  cases  the  control  of  our  foreign  relations. 
As  practised  by  the  queen  and  the  Prince  Consort  it 
really  placed  the  sovereign  at  the  head  of  the  foreign 
department.  If  therefore  the  continental  view  of  the 
king's  diplomatic  duties  to-day  is  to  be  accepted,  no  fresh 
precedent  would  be  established  ;  only  the  traditional 
practice  of  the  dynasty  would  be  continued.  That 
is  not  all.  The  transactions  with  which  the  popular 
mind  most  closely  connects  King  Edward's  diplomatic 
activities  are  those  centring  round  the  French  entente  ; 
this  was  officially  negotiated  by  Lord  Lansdowne,  and 
continued,  as  well  as  praised,  by  Sir  Edward  Grey. 
The  conjunction  of  these  two  names  in  the  foreign 
department  itself  seems  like  a  guarantee  that  no  party 
or  political  mutations,  however  violent  or  sudden,  will 
involve  a  dangerously  novel  departure  in  our  diplomacy. 
The  Anglo-French  cordiality  upon  certain  conditions 
was,  as  has  been  already  shown,  the  aim  not  less  of 
Palmers  ton  than  of  Aberdeen.  It  has  been  for  some  half 
a  century  the  policy  of  the  English  court.  Palmerston's 
dislike  of  Prussia  continually  threw  him  out  of  favour 

404 


New  Views  and  Ventures 

at  the  palace.  Never  on  that  account  for  a  moment 
did  Prince  Albert  drop  his  purpose  of  securing  Louis 
Philippe's  friendship.  The  tradition  of  this  amicable  in- 
tercourse lasted  throughout  several  years  of  Napoleon 
III.  To  the  queen  the  French  emperor  may  have 
been  a  source  of  amiable  perplexity.  The  queen's 
husband  in  equal  degrees  distrusted  his  character  and 
disliked  his  entourage.  Through  it  all,  the  good 
understanding  between  the  two  nations  remained  much 
what  it  was  when  initiated  in  the  forties  at  the  Chateau 
d'Eu.  So  far  as  any  hypothetical  event  can  be  spoken 
about  positively,  it  is  absolutely  certain  that  the  English 
court,  swayed  by  influence  like  that  of  Prince  Albert, 
would  have  prevented  the  Franco- Prussian  War  of 
1870.  For  that  struggle  France  had  been  preparing 
quite  as  long  by  a  search  after  foreign  alliances,  as 
Prussia  had  been  doing  by  accoutrements  and  arms. 
Even  the  latest  instalment  of  Queen  Victoria's  corre- 
spondence may  contain  no  reference  to  the  fact,  but 
during  the  Prince  Consort's  lifetime  Napoleon  III. 
expended  much  diplomatic  ingenuity  and  perseverance 
in  the  attempt  to  prepare  a  Franco-Austrian  understand- 
ing to  be  used  against  Prussia,  as,  if  there  had  been 
the  opportunity,  he  might  have  used  a  Franco- Prussian 
understanding  against  England.  A  like  friendly 
consideration  for  France  was  shown  after  the  prince's 
death  by  Queen  Victoria.  It  was  never  much  of  a 
diplomatic  secret  that  in  1875  Bismarck,  disgusted  at 
her  speedy  recovery  after  the  overthrow  of  five  years 
earlier,  wished  to  attack  France.  The  opening  move 
against  him  was  planned  at  Windsor ;  the  queen  at 
once  communicated  with  the  Czar  and  with  the  aged 
German  Emperor.  The  great  chancellor  thus  received 

.  405 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

checkmate.  Such  has  been  the  tendency  to  ignore 
or  underrate  the  Victorian  tradition  of  French  and 
English  goodwill  that  some  have  seen  in  Russia's 
Black  Sea  demands  of  more  than  a  generation  since 
the  inspiration  of  France  in  revenge  for  British  in- 
difference to  her  troubles  in  1870.  That  is  pure 
imagination ;  for  as  a  fact  France  had  very  little 
feeling  on  the  Black  Sea  question.  Among  his  own 
subjects  King  Edward's  employment  of  his  great 
personal  as  well  as  inherited  international  knowledge 
and  of  his  great  intellectual  powers  upon  foreign 
politics  is  the  more  welcome  because  his  chief  work, 
the  French  entente,  manifestly  has  not  proved  incon- 
sistent with  a  cordiality  with  Germany  which  is 
welcomed  as  warmly  in  France  as  in  England.  No 
ordinary  official  could  do  much  to  neutralise  the 
mischief  systematically  promoted  by  some  representa- 
tives of  the  new  journalism  whose  headquarters  are 
the  Stock  Exchange  rather  than  Fleet  Street.  The 
sovereign,  as  the  unofficial  head  of  the  department,  has 
already,  by  a  few  well-judged  words  of  courtesy  and 
social  acts  of  kindly  wisdom,  undone  the  potential  evil 
contained  in  newspaper  paragraphs  and  columns. 

Professional  diplomacy  may  express  itself  in  the 
language  of  resignation  rather  than  of  hope  about  the 
pacific  organisation  which  has  for  its  centre  The  Hague, 
formerly  so  prominent  and  fruitful  as  a  school  for  the 
foreign  politicians  of  Western  Europe.  The  delegates 
at  the  last  Hague  Conference  were  of  course  strictly 
bound  by  their  instructions.  Consequently  there  was 
no  room  for  much  initiative.  France  and  the  United 
States,  as  well  as  most  of  the  smaller  Powers,  with 

regard  to  arbitration  took  the  pacific  and  humanitarian 

406 


New  Views  and  Ventures 

side.  In  opposition  to  this  were  Germany  and 
Austria.  Both  Italy  and  Russia  shrunk  from  opposing 
Germany ;  they  were,  however,  not  unfriendly  to 
England.  Germany  cannot  disarm,  and  does  not  wish 
to  forego  any  advantage  accruing  to  her  from  the 
present  state  of  international  law.  At  The  Hague, 
therefore,  while  assenting  in  principle  to  peaceful 
solutions,  she  ruled  them  all  out  as  impracticable. 
Nevertheless  the  latest  conference  of  the  friends  of 
international  amity  in  the  Dutch  capital  took  one  real 
step  in  advance.  This  was  the  international  court  of 
prizes.  As  yet,  indeed,  this  has  only  an  inchoate 
existence.  The  next  thing  must  be  an  agreement  on 
the  rules  of  maritime  law  which  the  new  court  can 
apply.  In  the  settlement  of  these  English  diplomacy 
will  of  course  take  a  leading  part.  On  these  subjects 
Japan,  though  not  accepting  all  the  English  proposals, 
did  not  withhold  from  us  her  general  co-operation. 
Finally,  in  view  of  earlier  maritime  disagreements 
already  mentioned  at  their  proper  place  in  these  pages, 
it  is  satisfactory  to  know  that  most  of  the  South 
American  States  were  very  friendly  to  the  English 
proposals ;  they  insisted,  however,  on  the  absolute 
equality  of  all  Powers,  a  principle  which  in  practice 
leads  to  complications.  They  are  also  in  favour  of 
reducing  the  rights  of  belligerents  in  the  interests  of 
neutrals.  One  thing  is  certain  ;  if  The  Hague  dis- 
cussions have  not  effected  more  towards  preventing 
war  than  was  done  years  ago  by  some  suggestions  on 
the  subject  drawn  up  by  the  ex- Foreign  Secretary 
Lord  Malmesbury  and  his  friend  Sir  Henry 
Drummond  Wolff  in  The  Times,  they  have  marked  an 

epoch  in  the  evolution  of  international  law.     Students 

407 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 

of  this  science  will  find  in  the  minutes  of  the  Con- 
ference not  only  invaluable  material,  but  reason  for 
believing  that,  in  the  new  period  on  which  it  is  now 
entering,  diplomacy  will  increasingly  discover  oppor- 
tunities of  substituting  arbitration  for  recourse  to 
arms.  The  collective  efforts  already  made  in  this 
direction  may  be  explained  in  a  few  concluding  words. 
The  Brussels  discussion  in  1874  prepared  the  way  for 
the  peace  conferences  of  1899  and  1907.  The  former 
was  a  purely  diplomatic  agency.  Its  proposals  were 
made  in  answer  to  a  popular  cry  which  diplomacy 
desired  to  direct.  It  pretended  to  no  legislative 
authority.  It  ruled  out  the  limitation  of  armaments 
by  sea  and  land.  It  did,  however,  for  the  first  time, 
promote  international  arbitration  by  providing  a  court. 
It  nominated  judges.  It  indicated  the  modus  operandi 
generally  to  be  pursued.  The  1907  conference  had 
been  preceded  by  no  diplomatic  preparations.  It  was 
above  all  things  popular  both  in  its  personal  composi- 
tion and  its  methods.  Its  deliberations  were  con- 
ducted generally  on  the  go-as-you-please  principle. 
Thus  the  imparting  of  fresh  vigour  and  organisation  to 
diplomacy  by  the  personal  work  and  example  of  King 
Edward  has  almost  coincided  with  a  disposition  to 
assert  the  popular  will  on  international  procedure. 
This  tendency  was  favoured  by  Mr  Chamberlain's 
diplomatic  methods  before  the  Transvaal  war.  It  has 
expressed  itself  since  in  the  proposal  that  popular 
committees  of  the  various  nations  superintend  the 
doings  of  their  respective  Foreign  Offices. 


408 


INDEX 


ABERDEEN,  4th  Earl  of,  78,  233,  262, 

264,  267-275,  279,  280,  282,  284-9, 

291-2,  295-6,  298,  302-3,  305,  307, 

316,  321,  376,  386-7,  389*  39i 
Aboukir  Bay,  159 
A  chat  des  Actions  de  Suez,  331 
Acton,  Lord,  366 
Adair,  119,  121,  163,  276 
Adams,  113 

Adams,  C.  F.,  349.  352,  354 
Addington,  129,  159,  170-1,  173,  190, 

219 

Addison,  Joseph,  39,  59,  60 
Adrianople,  Treaty  of,  270-1,  319 
Advancement  of  Learning,  5 
AfifBey,  314 
Aix-la-Chapelle,   Treaty  of,   74,    171, 

238,  248-9,  255,  273 
Alabama,  348,  351,  353-4,  3^9 
Alberoni,  2,  42,  48,  62-5,  68-70,  74 
Albert,   Prince,    290,    296,   338,   340, 

342-3,  346,  351,  386,  400,  404-5 
Aldrich,  Dr,  48 
Alexander  L,  164,  166-8,  193-5,  2O2> 

205,  207,  226,  234,  236,  239,  240, 

245-7,  256,  372,  387. 
Alexander  II.,    323,    325,    329,   344, 

390,  393.  405 
Alexandrian  Library,  273 
Alfred,  King,  8 
Alfred,  Prince,  309 
Algeria,  French  occupation  of,  285 
Alien  Act,  139,  140 
Alison,  Sir  A.,  219,  223 
Ally  Croker,  122 
Alphonso  of  Castile,  10 
Alsace,  56,  142 
Althorp,  266 

American  Wars,  222-4,  34^ 
Amicus,  381 
Amiens,  Peace  of,  159-160,  168-9,  170 

i,  176,  208 
Anderson,  350 
Andrassy  Note,  330 
Anglo-French  alliance,  9-10,  28,  51-3, 

56,  63,  65,  67,  72-3 
Anglo-French  Convention,  298-9 
Anglo-French  entente,  340-4,  406 


Anglo-Portuguese  alliance,  207,  251 

Anglo-Prussian  alliance,  120-2 

Anglo  -  Russian  -  Neapolitan   coalition, 

173 

Anglo-Russian  Convention,  392 
Anglo- Spanish  alliance,  10-11,  17,  28, 

63 

Anglo-Turkish  Convention,  392 

Anne,  Queen,  19,  39,  40,  45,  51-2 

Anti-Corn  Law  League,  373 

Antwerp,  66 

Apodaca,  Admiral  J.  R.  de,  212 

Archangel,  126 

Aristophanes,  1 86 

Armada,  II 

Armed  Neutrality,  165,  199,  328 

Arthur,  Prince  of  Wales,  1 3 

Ash  bur  ton,  Lord,  287,  303 

Ashburton  Treaty,  287-8 

Assiento,  61 

Aston,  292 

Auckland,  Lord,  119,  122-3,  I25>  *33» 

149 

Auckland  Papers,  147 
Augustine,  8 
Austrian   Succession,  war  of  the,  45, 

149 

Austro-English  Treaty,  317-8,  336 
Austro-Spanish  alliance,  74 
Avignon  massacres,  126 

BACON, 5 

Baden,  56 

Bagot,  Sir  Chas.,  261 

Baltic,  attempt  to  close,  201-2 

Baring,  Sir  F.,  183 

Baring  £  Co. ,  287 

Barnave,  130 

Barnes  &  Co.,  183 

Barrere,  Camille,  398-9 

Barrier  Treaty,  65 

Bartenstein,  Treaty  of,  193,  195 

Barthelemy,  134,  137 

Basle  Treaties,  151-2 

Bath,  Lord,  315 

Bathurst,  3rd  Earl,  219 

Battye  &  Co. ,  183 

Bavaria,  Elector  of,  56,  83 


409 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 


Bavaria,  Prince  of,  41 
Baylen,  216,  244 

Beaconsfield,  Lord,  36,  180,  246,  297- 
8,  330-1,  333-5,  381,  389,  391,  393-4 
Beaufort,  Duke  of,  381 
Bedford,  Duke  of,  119 
Behemoth,  5 

Behring  Straits  trouble,  397 
Belgian  Treaty,  256-7,  278 
Belleisle,  84 
Bellingham,  168 
Benckendorff,  289 
Benedetti,  356-7 
Bengal  Convention,  125,  335 
Benoliel,  252 
Benson.  296,  334 
Bentinck,  Lord  Wm.,  254 
Berbice,  242 
Berg,  Duchy  of,  81 

Berlin,  Congress  of,  37,  246,  390-2,  398 
Berlin  Decree,  190,  196,  199,  207,  223 
Bernadotte,  227 
Bernard,  Montague,  353 
Bernis,  Abbe,  87 
Bernstorff,  201 
Bertha,  8 
Bertie,  368 
Besika  Bay,  317 
Bestuchoff,  88 
Beust,  Count,  358 
Bible,  free  use  of,  28 
Bignon,  194 

Bintinaye,  Chevalier  de  la,  130-1 
Biography  of  Prince  Consort ',  334 
Birinus,  8 
Biron,  Due  de,  136 
Bismarck,    Prince,    188,    355-7,    359, 

384>  405 

Blachford,  Lord.  363 
Black  Sea,  322,  327,  329,  381,  384, 

389 1  39°>  406 
Blowitz,  Baron,  380-1 
Blucher,  Marshal,  235 
Blunt,  W.  S.,  392 
Boleyn,  Anne,  22 
Bolingbroke,  Viscount,  35,  40,  44,  47- 

52,  56-64,  71,  75,  88,  92,  103,  191. 

250,  393- 

Bombay,  dowry  of,  29 
Bonaparte,  Joseph,  169 
Bonaparte  (see  Napoleon) 
Bourbons,  the,  76,  79,   104,  in,  120, 

124,  126-8,  132,  148,  157,  195,  207, 

209,  236,   242,    255-7,   272-3,    290, 

374,  388 

Bouverie,  Mrs,  176 
Braganza,  195,  207 
Brandenburg,  Duke  of,  24 
Brandenburg,  Electors  of,  40 


Breslau,  Treaty  of,  84 

Bresson,  291,  302 

Breteuil,  Due  de,  210 

Bridgeman,  F.  O.,  377 

Bright,  Dr  F.,  xi 

Bright,  John,  333,  335,  352 

Brisach,  56 

Brissot,  142 

Bristol.  106 

Bristol,  Bishop  of,  55 

Brodie,  Wm.  D.,  187 

Broglio,  Marshal,  113 

Brook's  Club,  129 

Brougham,  Lord,  218,  220,  259,  325 

Browning,  Oscar,  147 

Brunnow,  Baron,  161,  296,  316,  325, 

327,  329 

Brunswick,  Duke  of,  147.  149 
Bryce,  James,  39,  368 
Buckingham,  Duke  of,  23,  25-6 
Buckley,  Victor,  367 
Budberg,  General,  194 
Bulwer,  Henry  (see  Dalling,  Lord) 
Bunsen,  366 
Buol,  Count,  319,  322 
Burges,  J.  B.,  178,  180-2,  187,  215 
Burgundy,  Duke  of,  13,  28 
Burgundy,  Treaty  with,  13-4 
Burke,  133-4,  210 
Burleigh,  Lord,  20-1,  240 
Burnet,  40 
Bussy,  109,  no 
Bute,  109,' i  ii 
Byron,  145.  186,  268 
Byron,  Lady,  178 

CADIZ,  Duke  of,  289-291 
Calais,  20 
Callieres,  53 
Calonne,  127 
Calvin,  4,  6 
Calvo,  Balthazar,  211 
Cambrai,  Congress  at,  74 
Cambray,  League  of,  15 
Cambridge,  Earl  of,  10 
Campbell,  Sir  F.,  377 
Campo  Formio,  Peace  of,  153,  155 
Campuzano,  Chevalier,  212 
Canning,  George,  40,^170,  173,  176-8, 
186-7,    J89,  190-205,  207-210,   212- 

220,  222,  224,   227,  234,  238-9,  241, 

245,   247-260,   263-6,   271-2,  274, 

278-9,  294,  299,  310,  339,  391,  400 
Canning,  Sir  Stratford  (see  de  Redcliffe, 

Lord  S. ) 

Canterbury,  Archbishop  of,  123 
Canterbury  and  Rome,  19 
Canute,  9 
Canynges,  191 


410 


Index 


Cape  of  Good  Hope,  155,  176,  242 

Carlist  War,  289 

Carlos,  Don  (see  Charles  III.) 

Carmarthen,  Lord  (see  Leeds,  Duke  of) 

Carnarvon,  Lord,  170 

Caroline,  287 

Caroline,  Queen,  73 

Carrero,  Cardinal  Porto,  42-3 

Carteret,  Lord,  79,  82-4,  91-4 

Castlereagh,    193,   205,  212,  216-220, 

222,    224,    226-9,    233-5,   237-251, 

254-5,  259,  268 
Catalans,  53,  56 
Catalonia,  56 
Cathcart,  Lord,  233-4 
Catherine  of  Russia,    Il8-I2l,  147-8, 

152,  160,  163,  165-6,  314 
Cato,  59,  60 

Caulaincourt,  232-4,  236 
Cavour,  4,  311,  326,  336,  339 
Cecil  (see  Burleigh,  Lord) 
Cecil,  Lord,  23-4 
Ceylon,  169 

Chamberlain,  Joseph,  377,  408 
Charlemagne,  190 
Charles,  Archduke,  42,  54,  153 
Charles  I.  (England),  23-5 
Charles  II.  (England),  28-33,  45,  53, 

385 

Charles  II.  (France,  "  The  Bald"), 8-9 
Charles  II.  (Spain),  41-3 
Charles  III.  (Spain),  68,  77,  127 
Charles  V.  (Spain),  17-9 
Charles  VI.  (Austria),  70,  81 
Charles  X.  (France),  273-4 
Charles  XII.  (Sweden),  65-8,  72 
Charles  XIII.  (Sweden),  227,  387 
Charles  Edward  Stuart,  84,  211 
Charlotte,  Princess,  276 
Chateaubriand,  243,  401 
Chateau  d'Eu,  290,  405 
Chatillon,  Congress  of,  233-7 
Chaumont,  Treaty  of,  236-7 
Chauvelin,  Marquis  de,  137-140,  142-5 
Chenery,  Thomas,  324 
Chesapeake,  223 
Chesterfield,  81-2,  98 
Choiseul,  124 

Christchurch,  Dean  of  (see  Aldrich) 
Christian  IX.,  341 

Christina,  Queen  of  Spain,  289,  292-3 
Churchill,  Lord  R.,  373 
Civil  Service  Commission,  367 
Clarendon,  Earl   of,  28,  29,  45,  312, 

317,    319,  321,   323,    325-6,   337-8, 

352,  355,  376 

Clayton-Bulwer  Treaty,  337-8 
Clement  VII.,  Pope,  18 
Clement  XL,  Pope,  69 


Clerfayt,  153 

Clerk,  G.  R.,  377 

Cleveland  Row,  113,  116,  119 

Cleves,  Duchy  of,  24 

Circello,  Marquis,  185 

Clinton,  Viscount,  207 

Coalition,  First,  208 

Cobden,  Richard,  211,  295,  303,  332-6, 

371,  400 
Cobenzel,  148 
Coburg,  Prince  of,  152 
Cockburn,  Sir  A.,  354 
Coke,  277 

Coleridge,  S.  T.,  126 
Coletti,  286 

Collett,  C.  Dobson,  373 
Collier,  Sir  Robt.,  352 
Cologne,  Elector  of,  56 
Columbia  River  littoral,  288 
Commercial  Treaty,  125 
Compton,    Spencer    (see   Wilmington, 

Lord) 

Coningsby,  375 

Conspiracy  to  murder  Bill,  332-3,  352 
Constance  of  Spain,  10 
Constantinople  Conference,  391 
Consular  Service,  377-8 
Copenhagen,    bombardment    of,    199, 

201,  206 

Copenhagen  Mission,  x,  344-6 
Cornwallis,  Lord,  169 
Corsica,  146 
Corti,  Count,  393 
Cotton  trade,  209 
Country  Girl,  123 
Cour,  De  la,  315 
Coutts,  Thomas,  182 
Covent  Garden,  60 
Cowen,  Joseph,  372,  375 
Cowley,  Lord  (see  Wellesley,  Marquis 

of) 

Crescent  and  the  Cross,  375 
Crimea  acquired  by  Russia,  121 
Crimean  invasion,  78 
Crimean  war,  preliminaries,  312 
Cromer,  Lord,  309,  334,  368 
Cromwell,  Oliver,  27-8,  72,  385 
Cromwell,  Thomas,  5 
Crowe,  Eyre,  377 
Crowe,  Sir  Joseph,  377 
Crown,  descent  of,  7 
Cumberland,  Duke  of,  ill 
Currie,  Lord,  xi,  178,  364-5 
Cyprus,  392-3 
Czartoriski,  174 
Czernowitz,  260-1 

DALLING,  Lord,  280-1,  291,  302 
Dalrymple,  Lord,  119 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 


Danby,  Lord,  32-4 

Danton,  220 

D'Antraigues,  Count,  198 

Danube  Conference,  397-9 

Dardanelles,  blockade  of,  270-1 

Daru,  194 

Davis,  Bancroft,  354 

Davis,  Jefferson,  348-351 

Dean,  13 

Deane,  Silas,  113 

De  Borgo,  Pozzo,  209,  233-4 

De  Bourquency,  320 

Declaration  of  Independence,  113 

De  Grey,  Lord  (see  Ripon,  Marquis  of) 

D'Herbois,  Count,  212 

Delane,  J.  T...  324,  342,  381 

De  Lessart,  135 

De  Lesseps,  330-1 

Delmonico's,  380 

Demerara,  242 

Denmark,  Crown  Prince  of,  200-1 

Derby,  I4th  Earl  of,  307,  375 

Derby,    I5th  Earl  of,  298,  309,  333, 

352,  363,  382,  389-391 
De  Redcliffe,  Lord  S.  ,260,  3 14-6,  318-9 
Dervish  Pasha,  396 
De  Souza,  Chev.  Couttinho  (see  Funchal) 
Devonshire,  Duke  of,  129,  350 
Dilke,  Sir  Charles,  xi 
Dinol,  124 

Diplomatic  Review,  373 
Directory,  establishment  of  the,  154-5 
Disraeli  (see  Beaconsfield,  Lord) 
D'Orsay,  220 
Dover,  Treaty  of,  30 
Dowbiggin,  Colonel  M.  ("Take  care 

of  Dowb."),  324 
Dowbiggin,  W.  H.,  324 
Drake,  Sir  F.,  n 
Dresden,  Treaty  of,  85 
Drouyn  de  1'Huys,  321-2 
Drury  Lane,  116,  123 
Du  Barry,  Madame,  124 
Dubois,  Abbe,  65-7,  69,  72 
Dudley,  Lord,  264-7 
Duff,  Sir  M.  E.  Grant,  366,  374 
Dufferin,  Marquis   of,   xi,  347-8,  366, 

368 

Dumont,  139,  143-5 
Dumouriez,  139 
Dunbar,  Captain,  199 
Dundas,  137 
Dunkirk,  28,  66 
Dupont,  General,  216 
Durand,  Sir  Mortimer,  39 
Durham,  Lord,  277 
Dursley,  Lord,  40 
Dutch  war,  30,  32 
Dutens,  Lewis,  107-8 


EBARTS,  354 

Eden  (see  Auckland,  Lord) 

Eden,  Eleanor,  123 

Edinburgh  Review,  291 

Edward  I.,  9,  10 

Edward  III.,  7,  10 

Edward  VI.,  18 

Edward  VII.,  401,  404,  406,  408 

Elba,   blockade    of,    173 ;    Napoleon's 

escape  from,  242 
Eleanor  of  Castile,  10 
Eleanor  Plantagenet,  10 
Elgin,  Earl  of,  145,  373 
Elizabeth,  Queen  of  England,  5,    n, 

20-1,  72,  240,  368,  385 
Elizabeth   Farnese,  Queen    of   Spain, 

98 

Elizabeth  of  Parma,  77 
Elizabeth  of  Russia,  88 
Elizabeth  of  York,  13 
Elliot,  Sir  Gilbert,  123 
Eltchi,  260,  315,  317,  319 
Endymiont  381 
Eothen,  375 
Epicurus,  6 
Erskine,  223 
Esdaile&  Co.,  183 
Esher,  Lord,  296,  334 
Espartero,  292 
Essequibo,  242 
Estaples,  Treaty  of,  14 
Ethelbert,  8 
Ethelwulf,  8-9 
Essex,  3rd  Earl  of,  99-100 
Eugenie,  ex-Empress,  359 
European  Concert,  389,  390,  396 
Euxine,  322 

Ewart,  Joseph,  119,  I2O-2,  131 
Exmouth,  Lord    242 
Eylau,  193 

FAMILY  compacts,  76,  104-5,  Io8?  no, 

in,  124,  127,  148,  195,  257,  290 
Fane,  Julian,  325 
"  Favoured  Nation"  clause,  336-7 
Favre,  Jules,  358 
Fawkener,  Sir  E.,  97,  162-3 
Fawkener,  W.  A.,  163 
Ferdinand  of  Austria,  25 
Ferdinand  of  Naples,  247,  249,  252-5, 

300 

Ferdinand  of  Prussia,  113 
Ferdinand  of  Spain,  13,  68,  247,  252, 

254»  257 

Fernanda,  Princess  (Spain),  288-91 
Field  of  the  Cloth  of  Gold,  17 
Fish,  354 
Fitzherbert,   Alleyne  (see    St    Helens, 

Lord) 


412 


Index 


Fitzmaurice,  Lord,  xi,  168,  306,  358- 

9,  364.  397 
Fitzpatrick,  126 

Fleury,  Cardinal,  72-3,  78,  84,  93-4 
Fox,  C.  J.,  30,  113,  115-9,  121-6,  128- 
9,  130-2,   144,   154,   158,   162,  172, 
176-7,  189,  191-2,  202,  214,  269,  277, 

294,  304,  386-7 
Fox,  Henry,  86 
France  et  les  Etats  Unis,  124 
Francis  I.  (Austria),  228,  230,  245 
Francis  I.  (France),  85 
Francis  II.,  134 
Franche-Comte,  29 
Franco- Prussian  war,  57,  355-7,  405 
Franco-Spanish  alliance,  29,  70 
Franco- Spanish  war,  17 
Frankfort,  Treaty  of,  56 
Franklin,  113 
Frederick  the  Great,  4,  57,  81,  84-6, 

89,  91,  103-4,  1 1 1-2,  128 
Frederick  William  I.  (Prussia),  57 
Frederick  William  II.  (Prussia),  120, 

132 

Frederick,  Elector  Palatine,  23,25, 26,30 
Free  Trade,  57,  125-6 
French  Convention,  139-40,  142,  180 
French  Empire,  fall  of,  357 
French  Revolution,  118,  129-132 
Frere,  J.  H.,  40,  170,  186,  212-3,  216- 

7,  219 

Fribourg,  56 
Friedland,  194-5 
Froude,  J.  A.,  382 
Fuessen,  Treaty  of,  85 
Funchal,  Conde  de,  207,  2IO,  251,  339 

GAMBETTA,  395,  398 

Garibaldi,  310 

Garlike,  197 

Gaul  tier,  Abbe,  51,  58 

Geneva  arbitration,  348,  354,  389 

George  I.,  63,  65,  69,  72,   82,  92-3, 

95-6,  120,  387 

George  II. ,  73,  80-2,  87,  99,  104-6 
George  III.,  10,  83,  116-7,  I3°>  J34, 

138,  140,  146,  156-7,  170,  I79>  182, 

200-2,  276,  334,  387,  401 
George  IV.  (as  regent),  246 ;  (as  king), 

262,  264 

German  Protestant  Union,  24 
Gertruydenberg  Congress,  53 
Ghent,  Treaty  of,  224-6 
Gibbon,  118 

Gibraltar,  54-7,  64,  75,  77,  106 
Gibson,  Milner,  335 
Girondin  ministry,  134,  137,  139 
Gladstone,   W.    E.,    195,   310,  351-2, 

364-5>  375,  382,  385,  389,  393-5,  403 


Glatz,  87 

Globe,  392 

Godwin,  9 

Goertz,  65 

Goldsmid  &  Solomans,  183 

Gondomar,  23 

Goodall,  220 

Goodrich  government,  265-6 

Gordon,  Sir  R.,  271 

Gorst,  Sir  John,  373 

Gortschakoff,  324,  343,  391 

Gower,  Lord  Leveson   (see  Granville, 

ist  Earl  of) 
Goya,  220 

Grseco-Turkish  war,  396 
Grafton  Street,  117 
Grand  Alliance,  36,  45 
Granville,  1st  Earl  of,  131,   163,  167, 

276,  302 
Granville,  2nd   Earl   of,  ix,  x,  304-6, 

308,  317,  321,  33i>  333-4>  353-36o, 

363-5,   38o,  385,   389,  393-5,  397, 

399,  400,  403 
Great  Intercourse,  13,  14 
Greenwood,  F.,  330 
Grenville,   Lord,    117,    122,  131,  134, 

137,    139,   H2,  144*  15°'  J54,    J56, 

158-9,  160,  162,  168,  170,  178,  185, 

193,  196,  202,  221 
Grey,   Earl,  176,  189,  200,  221,  262, 

274,  277-9,  298,  304 
Grey,  Sir  Edward,  189,  196,  388,  402, 

404 

Grosvenor,  Lord  Hugh,  366 
Guienne,  9 

Guizot,  279,  283-6,  288-9,  290-1 
Gunhild,  Princess,  9 
Gunnersbury,  381 
Gustavus  IV.  (Sweden),  201-2 

HAGUE  Congress,  40,  187,  377 
Hague  Peace  Conference,  406-8 
Hamilton,  Sir  Wm.,  184 
Hammond,  George,  178,  221,  317,  355, 

363-4,  373,  376 
Hammond,  J.  L.  Le  B.,  126 
Handel,  60 

Hanover,  conference  at,  67,  72 
Hanover,  Electorate  of,  175-6 
Hanover,  Treaty  of,  85 
Hapsburg  family,  240,  403 
Harcourt,  42 
Hardenberg,  238-9,  244 
Hardinge,  Sir  Arthur,  365 
Hardinge,  Sir  Charles,  365,  376 
Harley,  50-1 
Harrington,  Lord,  95 
Harrowby,  ist  Earl,  172-3,  178-9,  l82, 

214 


413 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 


Hatzfeldt,  327 
Haugwitz,  161 
Hawkesbury,  Lord  (see  Liverpool,  Earl 

of) 

Hazlitt,  120 

Heligoland,  cession  of,  396 
Helsinborg,  Convention  of,  174 
Henley,  Lord,  185 
Henrietta  Marie,  24 
Henry  II.  (England),  9-10 
Henry  II.  (France),  19 
Henry  III.  (England),  9 
Henry  IV.  (France),  72,  240,  385 
Henry  V.  (England),  1 1 
Henry  VI.  (England),  14 
Henry  VII.  (England),  12-13,  34 
Henry  VIII.  (England),  5,   11,   14-8, 

27,  83,  91 

Henry  the  Lion  (Saxony),  10 
Herat  secured  by  England,  303 
Herbert,  Sir  M.  S.,  365 
Herbert,  Sir  Robt.,  363 
Herbert,  Sidney,  162 
Hertslet,  Sir  Edward,  361 
Hertzberg,  141 
Hervey,  56 

Heytesbury,  Lord,  270 
Hirsinger,  134-5,  137 
Hobbes,  Thomas,  5 
Hoche,  149 

Holdernesse,  4th  Earl  of,  85,  99 
Holland,  Lord,  115,  117 
Holy  Alliance,  245-6,   248,  250,  259, 

3°i,  338 
Holy  League,  16 
Hospodar  of  Moldavia,  338 
Houghton,  1st  Lord,  366 
Howick  (see  Grey,  Earl) 
Hubener,  327 
Humboldt,  Baron,  233 
Hundred  Years'  War,  385 
Hurlbert,  W.  H.,  380 
Huskisson,  265-7,  294 
Huxelles,  Marquis  de,  55 

IGNATIEFF,  General,  391 

Independence,  Declaration  of,  123 

Infantado,  Duke  of,  212 

Isabel  of  Spain,  1 1 

Isabella  of  Spain,  288-9.  291-2,  296 

Itajuba,  Viscount,  354 

Ivica,  56 

JACKSON,  200 
facob  &  D.  Ricardo,  183 
Jamaica,  28 

fames  I.  (England),  n,  22,  26,  30 
fames  II.  (England),  31,  39,  43,  55, 
385 


James  IV.  (Scotland),  13 

James  Stuart  (Pretender),  51,  63,  66 

Java,  241-2 

[efferson,  President,  221,  223 

fenkin's  ear,  77 

[ersey,  Earl  of,  49,  53 

[ohn  VI.  (Portugal),  252-3 

[ohn  of  Gaunt,  10 
Johnson,  Reverdy,  352-3 
Johnstone,  H.  A.  Butler,  374 
Jordan,  Mrs,  123 
Joseph,  Emperor,  119,  120 
Judith,  9 

Juliers,  Duchy  of,  24,  81 
Julius  II.,  Pope,  16 
Juntas,  216 
Jusserand,  366 

KATCHOUBEY,  168 

Katharine  of  Aragon,  n,  13,  18,  45 

Katharine  of  Braganza,  29 

Kaunitz,  87,  141,  146,  150,  161 

Keene,  Benjamin,  95-6,  98 

Kehl,  56 

Keith,  Sir  R.  M.,  86,  87,  119,  131 

Kendal,  Duchess  of,  92 

Keppel,  Lady  Caroline,  277 

Kimberley,  Lord,  ix,  x,  344,  346,  396 

King,  A.  T.,  183 

King's  Messengers,  378-9 

Kinglake,  A.  W.,  340,  375,  380,  382 

Kinnoull,  Lord,  97 

Kolnische  Zeitung,  382 

Kossuth,  301 

Kutchuk-Kainardji,  Treaty  of,  314,  319- 

LABOUCHERE,  H.,  374 

La  Croix,  155 

Lafitte,  276 

Lancaster,  Duchy  of,  267 

Langley,  Walter,  377 

Lansdowne,  Lord,  294,  312,  317,  388, 

402,  404 

Lauderdale,  Lord,  176,  204 
Lauriston,  Colonel,  169 
Lavalette,  215 
Layard,  A.  H.,  308 
Laybach  Congress,  249,  254-5 
Leake,  64 
Lee,  Sir  H.  A.,  xi 
Leeds,  Duke  of,  119,  120,  122,  178-9,, 

180,  214 

Leeds,  Dukedom  of,  34 
Leghorn,  68 
Leipzig,  244 

Lennox,  Lord  Henry,  374,  394 
Leo,  Pope,  190 

Leoben  preliminaries,  153,  155,  159 
Leopold,  Archduke,  24 


414 


Index 


Leopold,  Emperor  (Austria),  41,  131, 

132,  134-5 

Leopold  of  Saxe-Coburg,  276,  290,  296 
Lesage,  Chas.,  331 
Lever,  Chas.,  378,  380 
Leviathan^  5 

Lewis,  Sir  George  and  Lady,  382 
Liberty  riots,  277 
Lieven,  Princess,  262 
Ligne,  Prince  de,  242 
Lille  Conference,  171,  199 
Lincoln,  Abraham,  348-9 
Lisakievitch,  164 
Liverpool,  2nd  Earl  of,  168-9,  I72>  ^o, 

190,  221-2,  234,  248,  294 
Lombardy,  297,  301,  310 
London  Conference,  281 
London,  Treaty  of,  262,  266-9,  27O,  34 1» 

388 

Long,  129,  130 
Loo  Convention,  141,  160 
Lorcha  Arrow  affair,  295 
Lorraine,  41,  76 
Lorrainej  Duke  of,  76 
Louis  XIV.,  4,  28,  29,  31-3,  36,  41-4, 

46,  50-4,  70,  124,  385 
Louis  XV.,  67,  81,  86-8,  91,  93,  124, 

292 

Louis  XVI.,  124,  126-7,  142,  210,  280 
Louis  XVIII. ,  198,  236,  248,  257-8 
Louis  Napoleon,  300,  302-3,  308,  313, 

3I5>  323,  344,  346,  384 
Louis  Philippe,  272-6,  280-3,  285,  288- 

9,  290-1,  293,  297,  405 
Lowenheim,  238 
Lucy,  H.  W. ,  392 
Luneville,  Peace  of,  153,  159 
Luxemburg,  38,  241,  275-6,  356-7 
Lyons,  Lord  Edmund,  286-7,  355>  35$ 
Lytton,  Lord,  302 

MACDONALD  of  Clanronald,  119 

Macdonald,  Sir  Claude,  376 

Macdonald,  Sir  John,  353 

Machiavelli,  2-5,  22,  67,  125 

Mackenzie,  Sir  J.  S.,  107,  198-9,  200 

Mackintosh,  Sir  James,  172,  205 

M'Leod,  287 

Madeira,  202 

Madison,  President,  223 

Magenta,  310 

Maine,  boundary  of,  225,  303 

Majorca,  56 

Mallet-du-Pan,  210-11,  335 

Mallet,  Sir  Louis,  211,  335-6,  377,  400 

Malmesbury,  Lord,  154-5,  167,  170-1, 

173,  187,  199,  307-9,  310,  312,  315, 

326,  363,  407 
Malortie,  Baron,  380 


Malouet,  210 

Malplaquet,  98 

Malta,  163-4,  166,  169,  176 

Marat,  180 

Marathon,  355 

Mardyke,  66 

Margaret  of  Savoy,  1 3 

Margaret  Tudor,  13 

Maria,  Donna,  272 

Maria  Theresa,  29,  70,  76,  80,  84,  86-7, 

91,  loo,  104,  150 
Marie  Antoinette,  132 
Marie  Louise  of  Austria,  222,  234-5 
Maritime  League,  195,  200 
Marlborough,  Duke  of,  47-8,  52,  60-1, 

70,  1 10 
Marriages,  diplomatic,  IO,  13,   19,  2O, 

23-5,  34,  75,  93,  I22,  289-293 
Marriott,  Sir  Wm.,  373 
Martin,  Sir  Theodore,  296,  334 
Martinique,  169 
Mary  of  Modena,  55 
Mary,  Princess,  31-2 
Mary,  Queen,  n,  19-20 
Mary  II.,  34 
Mary  Stuart,  22 
Mason,  J.  M.,  350 
Mavrocardato,  286 

Maximilian,  Emperor,  17,  258 

Mazarin,  385 

Mazzini,  Joseph,  372 

Meade,  Sir  Robt.,  381 

Medici,  Catherine  de,  4 

Mehemet  Ali,  272,  279,  280-2,  288, 
299,  347,  386-7 

Mehemed  Djemil,  327 

Melbourne,  Lord,  277-8 

Memoirs  of  an  Ex- Minister ^  315,  326 

Meneval,  243 

Menschikoff,  Prince,  313-4,  316 

Mercure  Britannique,  211 

Mercure  de  France ,  21 1 

Merivale,  Herman,  363 

Mesnager,  Nicolas,  51,  55 

Methuen,  Sir  Paul,  46-7 

Methuen  Treaty,  47-8,  57 

Metternich,  x,  222,  226,  228-232, 
234-5»  239-240,  242-7,  253-4,  261-3, 
268,  271-2,  281,  292,  346 

Meunier,  289 

Milan  Decree,  223 

Milan,  Duchy  of,  68 

Milbanke,  Lady,  178 

Minorca,  54-7,  64.  100 

Minto,  2nd  Earl  of,  146-150,  159,  185, 
300 

Mirabeau,  167,  210 

Mollivitz,  83 

Monroe  Doctrine,  258,  402 


415 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 


Montagu,  Spencer  (see  Rokeby,  Lord) 
Montellano,  Duke  of,  212 
Montespan,  Madame  de,  135 
Montgomery,  Alfred,  170,  205 
Montmorin,  127 
Montpensier,  Due  de,  289-291 
Moorish  piracy,  242 
More,  Arthur,  58,  71 
Morea,  174,  269 
Morfontaine,  Treaty  of,  223 
Morley,  John,  5,  82,  333 
Morning  Herald^  280 
Morocco,  trouble  in,  285-6 
Morton,  13 

Mosquito  Islands,  338 
Mulgrave,  Lord,  214 
Mttnchengratz,  League  of,  301 
"Mango?;  365 
Murray,  Sir  John,  147 

NAPIER  AND  ETTRICK,  Lord,  99 

Naples,  76 

Naples,  King  of,  185 

Naples,  Queen  of,  13 

Napoleon  I.,  66, 117,  156-9, 168,  170-3, 

175-6,  189,  190-3,  195-7,  199,  201-9, 

210-11,  215-6,  219,  225-237,  241-3, 

247,  251-2,  270,  280,  388 
Napoleon  III.,  4,   302,  307-11,  313, 

323,  325-6,  329,  332,  336,  339,  343- 

4,  351,  356-7,  405 
Napoleon,  Prince,  312 
Navarino,  battle  of,  266 
Neapolitan  Letters,  310 
Nemours,  Due  de,  276 
Nesselrode,  238-9,  244-5,  261-2,  289, 

324 

Netherlands,  kingdom  founded,  241 
Neuburg,  Duke  of,  24 
Ntuchatel,  Mr,  381 
Neumann,  Baron,  381 
New  Brunswick,  boundary  of,  225 
Newcastle,  Duke  of,  76-7,  80,  82,  86, 

94-6,  129 
Newfoundland,  cession  of,  54  ;  fisheries, 

401 

Newnham,  Everett  &  Co.,  183 
Nicholas,  Czar,  259,  261,  270-1,   279, 

280-1,  295,  297,  301,  303,  313,  315- 

7,  319,  32o 
Niemen,  raft  of,  195-8 
Niger  negotiations,  377 
Nimeguen,  Treaty  of,  53 
Noailles,  19 

Non-intercourse  Act,  223 
Nootka  Sound,  127,  132,  166 
Norman  Conquest,  9 
Norris,  Sir  John,  98 
Northcote,  Sir  Stafford,  353-4 


Notten,  Van,  136 
Novara,  76 

Novikoff,  Madame,  381-2 
Novosiltzow,  172-4 
Nymphenberg,  Treaty  of,  84 

Oceana,  5 

O'Connel,  280 

Oczakow,  119,  120-1,  141,    162,   192, 

271,  372,  387 
O'Dowd  Papers,  378 
Oliphant,  Laurence,  373 
Omar  Pasha,  273,  316 
O'Meara,  204,  247 
"  One-hundred-and-one"  80 
Oppenheim,  Henry,  331 
Orders  in  Council,  196,  200,  203, 223-4, 

337,  367 

Oregon  Treaty,  389 
Orleans,  Due  d',  65,  125 
Orloff,  Count,  325 
Otto,  228,  231 
Ottoman  Bank,  375 
Otway,  Sir  Arthur,  374,  381 
Oxenstern,  2 
Oxford,  impeachment  of,  69 

PAGEOT,  293 

Pahlen,  Count,  164 

Palgrave,  W.  G.,  375 

Pallain,  398 

Pall  Mall  Gazette,  330 

Palmer,  Roundell,  354 

Palmerston,  Lord,  ix,  118,  199,  215, 
219,  269,  274-282,  284-5,  287.  289, 
290-2,  294-304,  307,  309,  312,  321-3, 
329,  330,  332-3,  337,  339-348,  352, 
359,  361-3.  371-2,  379-381,  386-7, 
389,  391,  400,  404 

Panine,  Count  Nikita  Petrovitch,  166 

Panmure,  Lord,  324 

Paris    Congress,   225,  324,   326,    329, 

337,  385,  390 
Paris,  Treaties  of,  109,  171,  205,  237, 

240,  253,  244-5,  328-9,  347,  397,  400 
Partition  Treaty,  41-3 
Passarowitz,  Peace  of,  67 
Past  and  Present  of  Russia,  372 
Paul  I.  (Russia),  161,  163,  165-6,  172, 

J75 

Pauncefote,  Lord,  354,  364,  399 
Pedro,  Don,  251 
Peel,  Sir  Robert,  282,  284,  296,  298-9, 

303,  3i6,  333,  340 
Pelham,  84,  88,  96 
Peltier,  172 

Pembroke,  nth  Earl  of,  162 
Pembroke,  I3th  Earl  of,  365 
Perceval,  Spencer,  1 68,  219,  221,  294 


416 


Index 


Perier,  Casimir,  276 

Persigny,  311 

Peter  the  Great,  65,  67,  72,  88,  395 

Peter  II.,  45 

Peter's  Pence,  46 

Peterborough,  69 

Petty,  Lord  Henry  (see  Lansdowne, 
Lord) 

Philip  III.,  19,  26 

Philip  IV.,  25 

Philip  V.,  53-4, 56,  62, 66, 68,  70,  77, 98 

Pichegru,  149 

Piedmont,  King  of,  301 

Pierrepoint,  201 

Pike,  L.  O.,x,  91 

Pillars  of  Hercules,  372 

Pilnitz  declaration,  131,  133,  148 

Piscatory,  Mr,  286 

Pitt,  Wm.  (Lord  Chatham),  77,  80, 
89-91,  98,  100-1,  106-113,  115-130, 
148,  188-9,  I9i»  257,  290,  387 

Pitt,  Wm.  (younger),  78,  126-137,  139- 
142,  144-5,  !47»  149-162,  166,  169- 
171,  i73-4»  176,  180-2,  186,  189,  191, 
197,  201,  203,  209,  211,  214,  218- 

221,  234,    238-241,   250,    254-5,    263, 

266, 372, 386-7, 391 

Pius  IX.,  Pope,  311 

Placentia,  68 

Poland,  14 

Pole,  Cardinal,  5,  19-20 

Polignac,  259 

Polish  Succession,  75 

Pompadour,  Madame  de,  87 

Ponsonby,  Lord,  277 

Pope  (poet),  40 

Person,  220 

Port  Mahon,  169 

Porte,  Treaty  with  the,  312 

Portland,  Duchess  of,  191 

Portland,  Duke  of,  123,  158,  189,  196, 

216,  219,  224 
Portland,  Earl,  41 
Portugal,  King  of,  251,  290 
Pragmatic  Sanction,  81 
Pretender,  The  (see  James  Stuart) 
Priest  of  Bacchus,  48 
Priestly,  Sir  W.  O.  and  Lady,  382 
Primrose  League,  373 
Prior,  Matthew,  39,  40-1,  51 
Pritchard,  284 

Protocol,  explanation  of,  327 
Provence,  Comte  de,  130 
Puisaye,  Count  A.  de,  211 
Pultney,  75 
Punch,  394 


QUADRILATERAL  Treaty,  281,  310 
Quadruple  Alliance,  67-8 


Quadruple  Treaty,  281,  310 
Quai  d'Orsay,  302 
Quarterly  Review \  80,  121,  331 
Queen's  Prime  Ministers,  The,  299 
Queen  Victoria's  Letters,  334 
Quiberon,  147,  211 


RADCLIFFE,  Dr,  48 
Raglan,  Lord,  324 
Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  22,  26 
Rastadt,  56 

Razumoffski,  Count,  233 
Recollections  of  the  Old  Foreign  Office, 

361 

Reding,  General,  216 
Reeve  Memoirs,  291 
Reichenbach,  Treaty  of,  120-1 
Reinach,  Joseph,  398 
Renard,  2 

Report  of  the  Finances,  194 
Restoration,  the,  5 
Reynolds,  109 
Rice,  Cecil  Spring,  366 
Richmond,  Duke  of,  394 
Rico,  Jean,  211 
Ripon,  Marquis  of,  353-4 
Ripperda,  51,  69,  70,  74 
Rist,  200 

Rivals,  The,  116,  118 
Roberts,  Curtis  &  Co.,  183 
Robespierre,  212 
Robinson,  Crabb,  117 
Robinson,  John,  55 
Robinson,  Sir  Thomas,  84,  86,  87,  95 
Rockingham,  113,  115,  123 
Rogers,  Sir  Frederick,  363 
Rokeby,  Lord,  x,  83,  268,  291,  293 
Romana,  General,  202 
Romanes  Lecture,  5 
Romanzoff,  226 
Rome,  King  of,  222 
Rooke,  64 

Roosevelt,  President,  365-6 
Rose,  Colonel,  315 
Rose,  George,  203,  224 
Rosebery,  Lord,  140-1,  157,  182,  401 
Roskilde,  201 
Rosslyn,  204 

Rothschild,  136,  181-2,  328,  381 
Rothschild,  Lionel,  331 
Rothschild,  Nathan  Meyer,  181 
Rouille,  86-7 

Royal  Commission  (1890),  365 
Rudolph,  Emperor,  24 
Rugen,  capitulation  of,  207 
Rumbold,  Sir  H.,  329,  355 
Rush,  258 
Russell,  Lord  Arthur,  380,  382 


417 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 


Russell,  Lord  John,  91,  266,  269,  304, 
311-2,  319,  321-2,  326,  335,  337-9, 
34i-3>  347-354,  361,  363,  374 

Russo-Turkish  war,  175 

Ryder,  Dudley  (see  Harrowby,  Lord) 

Ryswick,  Treaty  of,  35,  37-41,  43-4,  49, 
51-3,  56,  171 

ST  BARTHOLOMEW,  Massacre  of,  4 

St  Helen's,  Lord,  166-7 

St  John  (see  Bolingbroke,  Viscount) 

St  Petersburg,  Treaty  of,  173-4,  192 

St  Vincent,  208 

Salamis,  315 

Salisbury  Circular,  392 

Salisbury,  Lord,  ix,  309,  333,  374,  376, 

389>  392-3,  396,  401-3 
Salvandy,  De,  292 
San  Carlos.  Duke  of,  212 
San  Domingo,  152 
San  facintO)  351 
San  Juan  settlement,  389 
San  Stefano,  Treaty  of,  390-2 
Sanderson,  Lord,  365,  376 
Sandwich,  Lord,  345 
Sardinia,  75 

Sardinia;  King  of,  100,  108,  300,  339 
Savoy  and  Nice  discussions,  339-340 
Savoy,  Duke  of,  39 
Savoy,  King  of,  57,  108 
Saxony,  Electors  of,  40 
Schaub,  Sir  Luke,  93-4 
Scheldt,  141-2 
Schlesinger,  Max,  382 
Schleswig-Holstein,  340-2,  347 
Schoell,  238 

Schonbrunn,  Treaty  of,  190 
School  for  Scandal,  116 
Sclopis,  Count,  354 
Scott,  Sir  Wm.  (see  Stowell,  Lord) 
Sebastiani,  276 
Seeley,  T.  R.,  80,  105,  108 
Serpents,  Isle  of,  326-7,  337 
Servetus,  4 

Servia,  constitution  of,  329 
Seven  Years'  War,  85,  88,  89,  90,  387 
Seville,  Treaty  of,  74-5 
Seward,  350 
Seymour,  Sir  H.,  316 
Shelburne,  115-6,  118,  123-6 
Sheridan,  R.  B.,  116,  118-9,  177-8,  214 
Sicily,  60,  76,  176 
Sicily,  King  of,  10 
Silesia,  81,  84,  85,  87-8 
Slidell,  350-1 

Smith  (Foreign  Secretary),  223 
Smith,  Adam,  174 
Smith,  Payne  &  Smiths,  182 
Smith,  Sir  Sydney,  252 


Smythe,  George,  375 

Smythe,  Percy  (see  Strangford,  Lord) 

Soissons,  congress  at,  74 

Solferino,  310 

Somerset,  Lady  Augusta,  38 

Somerset,  Protector,  18 

South  Sea  Company,  98 

Southey,  126 

Souza  (see  Funchal) 

Spain,  war  with,  76-9 

Spanish  Succession,  war  of,  45-6 

Spectator^  349 

Spencer,   2nd    Earl,   146-8,   158,   170, 

172 

Stackberg,  231 
Stadion,  Count,  148,  233 
Staempfli,  J.,  354 
Stanhope,  Earl  of,   ix,  x,   62-70,   72, 

83,  91  >  95,  98 

Stanhope,  Wm.  (see  Harrington,  Lord) 
Stanley,  Hans,  109,  in 
Stanley,  Lord  (see  Derby,  Earl  of) 
Stanyan,  Abraham,  97 
Steele,  39 

Steers  &  Mortimer,  183 
Stein,  226,  238,  244 
Stepney,  George,  39 
Stepney,  Sir  J.,  119 
Stewart,  Sir  Chas.,  167,  233 


Stowell,  Lord,  175 

,,  Eai 
Strange,  213 


Strafford,  Thos.,  Earl  of,  55 


Strangford,  6th  Viscount,  207,  252-3, 

261 

Strangford,  8th  Viscount,  375 
Strasburg,  38 
Straton,  147-8 
Strogonoff,  Baron,  205 
Stuart,  Lord,  of  Rothesay,  251,  272-3 
Suez  Canal,  330-1,  399 
Sully,  Due  de,  35,  240 
Sunderland,  82 
Sutherland,  Dr,  121 
Swift,  Benjamin,  40 
Syria,  outbreak  in,  347-8 

TAHITI,  284-5 

"Talents"  ministry,  176,  192-3 

Tallard,  Marshal,  51 

Talleyrand,  11  g,  135-6,  138-9, 169,  171, 
175-6,  181,  I94,  199,  201,204-5,  209 
233,  236,  238 .9,  240.  244,  275-6,  278, 
283,  300 

"Tamarang,"  307 

Tarruch,  227 

Taunton,  211 

Tauroggen,  Convention  of,  226 

Taxation  War,  71 

Taylor,  Brook,  197,  200 


Index 


Taylor,  Sir  Henry,  363 

Tchernitcheff,  289 

Tchihatchef,  Baron,  325 

Temperley,  H.  W.  V.,  199 

Temple,  Sir  Wm. ,  6,  30-1,  33 

Tencin,  Cardinal,  84 

Tenniel,  Sir  J.,  394 

Tenterden,  Lord  (see  Pauncefote,  Lord) 

The  Prince,  6 

Thibaudeau,  204 

Thiers,  Adolphe,  279-283,  358-9 

Thirty  Years'  War,  24-5,  142 

Thornton,  Conway,  366 

Thornton,  Sir  Edward,  353 

Thugut,  Baron,  146,  149-50,  152-3 

Tickell,  39 

Ticknor,  401 

Tierney,  218 

Tilsit,  Peace  of,  162,  195-8,  200,  204-8. 

226,  231-2,  234,  236,  372-3 
Times,  The,  299,  342,  349,  356,  380-1, 

400,  407 
Tipper,  117 
Tobago,  137-8 
Tocqueville,  De,  349 
Toledo,  Archbishop  of,  42-3 
Toplitz,  Treaty  of,  267 
Torcy,  De,  49,  50,  52 
Tortona,  76 
Toulon,  152 

Townshend,  Lord,  78,  92-4 
Trafalgar,  208 
Treaty-making,  183-5 
TVro/afiair,  225,  338,  351 
Trinidad,  169,  208 
Triple  Alliance,  29,  66-7,  188 
Troppeau,  congress  at,  249,  254-5 
Truefit,  394 
Tufton,  Chas.,  377 
Tunis,  393 
Turgot,  124 
Turin,  107 

Turkey,  attempt  to  coerce,  395-6 
Tuscany,  68,  76 
Tyrawley,  Lord,  98 

UNKIAR  SKELESSI,  Treaty  of,  279-80, 

282 

Urquhart,  David,  371-3 
Utrecht,  Peace  of,  35,  45,  48-9,  51-7, 

59-61,  66-7,  71,  79»  106,  128,  136, 

171,  320 

VALENCAYE,  300 
Valencia,  211 
Vaudois,  28 

Vaughan,  Chas.  R.,  213 
Vendee,  La,  21 1 
Vend6me,  Due  de,  62 


Venetia,  297,  301 

Venezuelan  dispute,  397,  402 

Venice,  15 

Vergennes,  124-5 

Verona  Congress,  255,  259,  260 

Versailles,  Peace  of,  87,  123,  125,  171 

Victor  Emmanuel  (Italy),  57 

Victoria,    Queen,    187,   288-291,    295, 

297-8,   300,   305-7,   312,    323,   343, 

354,  386,  404-5 
Vienna,  Bank  of,  149 
Vienna,  definitive  Peace  of,  76 
Vienna,  Treaties  of,  74-5,  141,  227-8, 

236-9»  253,  274-5,  308,  320-1,  329, 

347,  376 

Vienna  Note,  318-9,  321 
Villafranca,  Peace  of,  310-11 
Villamarina,  327 
Villiers,  Chas. ,  292,  335 
Villiers,  Sir  Edward  (see  Jersey,  Earl 

of) 

Voisins,  378 
Vourla,  315 
Vrilliere,  La,  93 

WALCHEREN  expedition,  217 

Waldegrave,  Lord,  96,  100 

Walewski,  327,  345 

Wall,  General,  105-7 

Wallace,  Sir  Mackenzie,  382 

Walmer  Castle,  380-1 

Walpole,  Horace,  73,  94 

Walpole,  Sir  Robert,  69,  70-81,  82,  92- 

4,  99,  129,  250 
Walpole,  Sir  S. ,  xi 
Warbeck,  Perkin,  14 
Warburton,  Eliot,  375 
Ward,  Samuel,  380 
Warham,  13 

Warren,  Admiral  Sir  J.  B.,  165-6 
Wartensleben,  120 
Washington,  George,  222-3 
Washington,  Treaty  of,  354 
Waterfield,  H.  O.,  375 
Waterloo,  battle  of,  244 
Watford,  Urquhart's  house  at,  371 
Wealth  of  Nations,  174 
Wellesley,  Sir  A.  (see  Wellington,  Duke 

of) 
Wellesley,  Marquis  of,  212,  219-221, 

302,  308,  311,323,  327 
Wellesley,  Victor,  377 
Wellington,  Duke  of,  201,   213,  217, 

220,  222,  227,  244,  246-7,  255-6,  267, 

269, 272-3,  296, 299,  303, 312,  387-8 

Wentworth,  Thos.  (see  Strafford,  Earl 

of) 

Wessingberg,  230 
West  Indies,  28,  155,  198 


419 


The  Story  of  British  Diplomacy 


Westminster  Gazette,  392 
Westminster,  Treaty  of,  86-8 
Westphalia,   Peace  of,  26-8,  35,   128, 

142,  267 

Weyer,  S.  Van  de,  277,  307,  381 
Whately,  Archbishop  of,  273 
White,  Lydia,  205 
Whitworth,  Earl,  161,  164 
Wickham,  154 
Wikoff,  Chevalier,  380 
Wilberforce,  Wm.5  154,  294 
Wilkes,  Captain,  351 
Wilkes  Riots,  277 
William  I.  (England),  9 
William  II.  (Germany),  405 
William  III.,  27,  31-2,  34,  36-9,  41-2, 

44-5,  53'  75,  79 
William  IV.,  403-4 
William  of  Orange,  127 
Williams,  C.  H.,  122 
Wilmington,  Lord,  73 


Wilson,  Sir  Chas.  Rivers,  398-9 

Windham,  158 

Woburn,  119 

Wodehouse,     Lord     (see     Kimberley, 

Lord) 
Wolff,  Sir  H.    Drummond,  309,  331, 

407 

Wolsey,  Cardinal,  13,  15,  16-18 
Wordsworth,  126 
Woronzow,   Count,    160-2,    164,    166, 

172 

Wotton,  Sir  Henry,  31 
Wraxall,  Nathaniel,  121 

YANCEY,  W.  L.,  350 
Yarmouth,  Lord,  176,  204 
York,  Duke  of,  122,  262 
York,  General,  226,  229 

ZOLLVEREIN,  336 

Zurich  Treaties,  339 


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